THE TICK'S FRET
I hesitate, Great God Up There,
I’m such a creep! But hear this prayer.
I ask you: Are your records
straight
In judging ticks’ eternal
fate?
Remember, we’re those parasites
That include chiggers, nits and mites.
(Too many, aren’t we, Holy
Maker?
Sometimes 3 million to an
acre!)
Confuse us not with folks around,
Whose names resemble ours in sound:
Like hereTICS of some persuasion
Or even mysTICS on occasion.
That coterie of near namesakes
Are rightly damned for their mistakes!
We fret! Might we come to
perdition
For misperceived name recognition?
We know misguided heretics
Don’t love the truth, like Catholics.
And mystics often end in
schism
When they neglect their catechism.
Then ticks get daubed with the same paint
For things we never were and ain’t!
(Can one be sentenced to
damnation
For pure guilt-by-association?)
So please, dear God, don’t mix our name
With wild freethinkers without shame.
You’ll find us ticks believe
and do
Whatever Dogma says is true.
from the forthcoming book Prayers of 100 Animals A to Z, by William Cleary
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