Skepticism

The lazy drops announced themselves in tocks
That stroked the midnight silence like the knocks
Of dearest returned home. Falling water
Broke light on steel gutters and polished rocks.

The smoke my cigarette was offering to
The rinsed-out air sought new residence through
Twisting itself between cracks where the rain
Had missed a spot. I watched it go in vain.

It cost some inward struggle to content
Myself to being a smeller of scents
That washed, and left fresh all they had befell.
The wish I kept to cleanse I cannot tell.

God on the cross, Buddha's enlightenment,
An ancestral sacrifice of yore went
Short of enticing a skeptic to dock
In the waters that keep the divine clock.