Flying Foxes Poem by Peter Skrzynecki

With the hot summer rains they came
out of the forest, crying like lost souls
against a December moon that offered

no respite or refuge from the secrets
they carried to unburden themselves from
in the darkness of river gorges—

or clung, to mango and pawpaw,
while stars pierced their tongues
and breezes mercilessly whipped them on

from tree to tree, valley to valley,
as midnight faded slowly into a Hades
of sunlight and the flying foxes

were gone from yet another night,
here, in the season of jagged hail
that stoned down upon flame-tree and poincianas

while people talked of petals flowing like blood
past doorsteps and along the road.
When sheet lightning tore the sky

the same people prayed, closed windows,
turned off lights and waited
tensely until the fury of winds passed

deeper into the mountains—then prepared
meals as if a holocaust was at hand;
though, at evening, children were allowed outside

to imitate the screams of flying foxes—out to where
every tree stood like a Tower of Famine
that would always reach.