INTRINSIC HABIT

Too many years courting goddesses,

genuflecting at the foot of ridgetops:

oak trees sharp and close enough to touch

to beg relief—to even entertain

such shameful blasphemy, such

feeble will to forever lose their ear.

Every river canyon churns to fill

and spill its reservoirs, white-capped

Sierras stacked with two-year’s snowpack

awaiting summer’s melt to flood the flats

and yet I can’t concede what is not me:

always ready, waiting for a good-hard rain.