Let Them Not Say
       

Let them not say: we did not see it.
We saw.

Let them not say: we did not hear it.
We heard.

Let them not say: they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.

Let them not say: it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.

Let them not say: they did nothing.

We did not-enough.
Let them say, as they must say something:

A kerosene beauty.
It burned.

Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.

Tweet

Copyright © 2018 Jane Hirshfield All rights reserved
from America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience
Sixteen Rivers Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission