Evening Wind

We ride the evening wind on wings of leather
We fly, but do not have a single feather
A fifth of the world’s furred beasts known
The only order that has truly flown

Our calls echo throughout the night
For that is how we guide our flight
Too high pitched for you to hear
Clicks silent to the unaided ear

The majority of us eat bugs that fly
clearing moths from the dark sky
Many of us eat nectar and fruit
With doglike faces that are rather cute
They call that kind the flying fox
A few drink blood from the ox

Caves are where most of us dwell
Trees or the church tower’s bell
We clutch the ceiling with our feet
Or let go as our wings begin to beat

The smallest species of our kind
An inch or so from head to hind
At seven hundreths of an ounce
Five inches of wingspan pounce

The large flying fox, five feet across
compared to the bumblebee, an albatross
Sixteen inches from rear to crest
At two pounds, one of our largest

In species, twelve hundred strong
United by hands with fingers quite long
Look at the bones that make up my wing
Now look at your hand, it’s the same thing


Notable among us are the honduran whites
Who rest in leafy tents between flights
They chew the center with yellow nosed snouts
and the leaf falls down to make their hangouts

Three vampires make us look bad
They feed off cows and make farmers mad
They are considered disease spreading pests
While a drug from their spit is in clinical tests

Rousettes click their tongues in caves
Which is not how the rest of that family behaves
Flying foxes rely on their eyes
They don’t use echos to search the skies

The spectral kind bring great fear
Too sneaky for their prey to hear
The largest species that’s carnivorous
Eat the smaller breeds among us

The days might belong to the bird
But at night a different song is heard
The sun sets as the Earth is spinned
And we emerge on the evening wind.