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.

Source: Collected Poems (Oxford University Press, Ltd.)