The Cost Of Living

Bats are prepared
To live half the year
And most of the day
Head–downward, half–conscious,
Turning their hands into wings,
Their mouths and their ears
Into echo–devices to catch
What we think uneatable.

Cattle and sheep
Do nothing all day
But munch, munch, munch,
Or ruminate
What they have munched.

Penguins are willing
(by turns with a mate)
Month after agony month
To stand in a blizzard
Two feet on ice,
Making their body a duvet,
To hatch out and nourish
One chick.

Butterflies
And their cousins the moths
Spend ninety per cent of their lives
Disguised as grubs
Or wrapped like mummies,
Or on a brief outing of love
And laying of eggs,
Never counting the cost.