Let them not say

A winter night 

Sir William Llewellyn

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. 

Jane Hirshfield

About This Poem
"This poem was written well before today's presidential inauguration and without this event in mind. But it seems a day worth remembering the fate of our shared planet and all its beings, human and beyond."
-Jane Hirshfield