[ The poet Jane Hirshfield offers a grieved portrayal of
contemporary impotence and apathy.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

LET THEM NOT SAY  
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Jane Hirshfield
January 20, 2017
Poem-a-Day
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_ The poet Jane Hirshfield offers a grieved portrayal of contemporary
impotence and apathy. _

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LET THEM NOT SAY

By Jane Hirshfield

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.

Jane Hirshfield is the author of ten books of poetry, including _The
Asking: New and Selected Poems _(Knopf, 2023).  She's also the
author of two now-classic books of essays, _Nine
Gates _(HarperCollins, 1997) and_ Ten Windows _(Knopf, 2015), on
the intersecting infrastructure of poetic craft and human lives, and
four books presenting and co-translating the work of world poets from
the past. Considered one of the foremost spokespersons for issues of
the biosphere and interconnection, in 2017 she founded Poets for
Science with Kent State's Wick Poetry Center, in conjunction with that
year's worldwide March for Science. A former chancellor of the Academy
of American Poets and recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and
Rockefeller foundations and the NEA, she was elected in 2019 into the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “Let Them Not Say” appears
in her latest book:
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/715681/the-asking-by-jane-hirshfield/
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