Bats

What song would you render,

On the eve of another storm?

In a prayer house, bats perched

On the speaker, beside the pulpit.

I believed they could hear us,

And like the old days

We speak in tongues like our ancestors

But I don’t know what God made of it.

This was one of the earliest miracles

I knew, they were without food

And they left at almost the same time,

Just after maghrib prayer, three days later

I still don’t know what bats eat.

A flame of a lantern dances in its glass.

After the prayer, we whispered into our palms,

I was silent, but my eyes were stuck on the bats.

I was relieved when they flew out the window,

Back under the sky where every miracle belongs.