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A poem for Donald Trump’s America: “Let them not say we did not see it. We saw”

Posted 3 years ago | 0 comments
The Academy of American Poets reached out to Salon to share Jane Hirshfield’s poem, which it published today as its featured poem ahead of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.

“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,” Hirshfield said in a statement.

Hirshfield is an acclaimed American author and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets whose most recent book, “The Beauty,” was published in 2015.

*  *  *

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.

Source: Salon: in-depth news, politics, business, technology & culture > Politics

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