It is not like nothing to be a bat.

We can debate:
Debate whether the essence of batness can
       be discerned by the tools of science,
Whether it is an accidental squiggle in a
       time/space field,
Whether it is driven by an urgency,
Whether it is designed,
Whether it is knowable at all,
Whether its fluttering is a thing of joy,
Whether it matters...

But it is like something to be a bat.
There is no outside without an inside.

It is not like nothing to be a frog.
Again we can debate at the periphery,
But again there is an inside...
A vividness that is more urgent
Than the knowledge gleaned by our senses
Of its greenness in the day
And its singing at night.

It sings for a mate.
It sings, “Here I am beloved green thing.
Come to me.”
Only the frog can say whether there is joy in its singing.

Does the frog understand that when it sings it
also attracts fluttering things in the night
sky that might swoop down like dragons to
impale it on sharp and final teeth?
Is it's singing a thing of courage?
Does the bat know that the singing has an inside
as palpable as the inside of its own swooping?

We know only this:
The frog sings.
The bat swoops.

Betsy's Pictures A poem to go with the picture (Well, sort of. I mean it's not a rocking hippopotamus that the boy is riding, but you have to allow a little poetic license.)