Jerusalem Sonnets (1)

The small grey cloudy louse that nests in my beard Is not, as some have called it, ‘a pearl of God’ — No, it is a fiery tormentor Waking me at two a.m. Or thereabouts, when the lights are still on In the houses in the pa, to go across thick grass Wet with rain, feet cold, to kneel For an hour or two in front of the red flickering Tabernacle light — what He sees inside My meandering mind I can only guess — A madman, a nobody, a raconteur Whom He can joke with — ‘Lord,’ I ask Him, ‘Do You or don’t You expect me to put up with lice?’ His silent laugh still shakes the hills at dawn.