Faint chitterings greet

the approaching hush of night

      - sweet promise of flight.

                                                                                      Nocturnal flyers;

                                                            strange fruit pegged to un-leafed limbs

                                                                                      - chrysalis clusters.

       Colony alights

black scrabbles scratched across

       molten lava sky.

                                                                                      Shy orchard raiders

                                                                                prolific seed dispersers

                                                                                      - all too successful.

      Landowner scans skies

Nature's averse witness and

       dismayed sentinel.