Lake memory

One morning we walked to the dock for a joy-ride in one of the weak-engined boats and found that a bat had died there in the night
a baby
it looked soft and sad and we didn't know what to do
my mother came down and said slowly in almost a whisper,
"Oh, yes. It's a bat"
as though it could have been anything
we scooped it up gingerly with a shovel
and from the roof of the boathouse, pitched the tiny lump into the overgrown shoreline
which didn't seem tender enough.