So I standby with a mouthful of
protest but no place to start, while
you confess to the mountain ridge
 “the deed is done” and stare down its blue. 

If you judge my pit-red knuckles, fair
enough, but only my ears listen as you
go on “I’m sure you’ve seen worse,”
across a valley that can’t assume blame,
and for molecules whose bonds forged 
well before the crop from our harvest.

So aren’t you as guilty as me, caught
red-handed, absent until our fruit
hardened, and I’ve stripped our pasture,
smoothed the dirt, and now you return,   
unbridling like June tickseeds on our hillside? 

Or rather, can we agree after the fact,
coal ribs of a mountain tell more than her forests,
tell us the balance of labor, tell us which words count,
which already turned, and if the season can absolve our silence?