'Bats of Alexandria', by Özge Lena
What is lost is lost, we have
to learn to carry that loss on
our shoulders like blind bats
as delicate limbs of the body.
That night in the high terrace
of a hotel in Alexandria, I read
that along with endless scrolls
of papyrus, there were shrines
for nine muses in the ancient
library, the goddesses of music
and poetry, then the labyrinthine
gardens to discuss the lectures,
and a strange collection of live
animals. That they burned last.
Centuries later it is midnight
when I walk on the caramel
coloured beach of the city,
a sudden colony of loud bats
fly over my head, screeching in
hot winds of the Mediterranean
that bring the crackles of feral
flames, then the air smells of soot
and ash, bitter cries of burning
animals descend all over the city.
Özge Lena is an Istanbul-based poet & writer. Her poems have appeared in various countries including the UK, USA, Canada, Bangladesh, Iceland, Serbia, and France. In 2023, she was nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her ecopoem "Undertaker" is forthcoming in the Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War Anthology from Scarlet Tanager Books in the USA in 2025. Özge's poetry was shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and the Ralph Angel Poetry Prize in 2021, then for The Plough Poetry Prize in 2023, and for the Black Cat Poetry Press Nature Prize in 2024.
Bluesky: @lenaozge.bsky.social
Twitter (X): @lenaozge
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‘The Burning of the Library of Alexandria’ by Robert Ambrose Dudley (1910)