By Kristen Pope

Rabbi Zoe Klein has written over 500 poems about bats, with over 900 more to go. Klein is on a mission to write a poem about each bat species on Earth, a constantly shifting goal as new species are identified.

After more than 25 years serving as Rabbi at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, Klein, a Bat Conservation International (BCI) member, decided she wanted to bring a long-held dream to life: writing a poem about every mammal on Earth. Initially, she envisioned penning poems about giraffes, zebras, and cats, but she soon realized bats make up more than a quarter of the world’s mammal species. She’s loved bats since childhood, so that is where she started.

Taking a three-month sabbatical in late 2023 and early 2024, Klein found a remote cabin in Tennessee shaped like Noah’s Ark and thought it would be the perfect place to work on her project. Starting with verses about Temminck’s tailless fruit bat (Megaerops ecaudatus) and its relationship with figs, her first batch of poems included tube-nosed bats, leaf-nosed bats, and flying foxes.

For each poem, she read about the bat, looked at photos, and even listened to podcasts. She learned about each species’ ecosystem, including the local flora, fauna, and geography. She says getting to know each species felt like a spiritual practice, almost like a trip around the Earth.

“Studying bats takes you to almost every nook and cranny around the world, from the caves in Borneo to little archipelagos, to crypts and mineshafts and abandoned churches,” Klein says. “You just travel all over the world.”

Her collection includes iambic pentameter sonnets, villanelles, limericks, haikus, and poems that are several pages long. For the Hipposideros bats—whose diet can include beetles—she based each poem on a song by the human band The Beatles. Each poem was designed to spark curiosity while being accessible, rhythmic, and fun.

When she initially embarked on the project, Klein feared she would run out of material about the bats, but now she’s finding herself tempted to write multiple poems about species. She’s still writing away, with more than 900 poems before she moves on to her next group of mammals.

Next up? Rodentia.

others who waste all their time rushing
miss the magic of a tree’s blushing,

metamorphizing its phenotype
as all its fruit become dark and ripe.
it’s an enchanted time window
as these bombs of nutrition grow

before their skin bursts and explodes
dispersing the tree’s dna code
to mulch into the forest loam.
i am patient. i do not roam.

i wait until the precise moment
before the juices start to ferment,
that point when the tree’s fully bedecked in
luscious and mushy, blushing and beckon-
ing bundles, oh the ripening!

there’s nothing more enlightening
than to be present for the ripening!