Pogue,

Having written Where Do The Birds Go (The Bigger Question)? and finished with the words;

Leaving us no guilt
Let’s not remember
That evil prevails when good men
Notice not

I came across a poem entitled Let Them Not Say by Jane Hirshfield in my reading today. For me, it had taken what I had said and expanded it. See what you think:

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

Let them not say: we did not hear.
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 ourself by it,
read by its light, praised,

And it burned.

I’d never read Jane Hirshfield before and strange I should come to this after what I wrote. Were my senses just more alert, attuned? Or is it synchronicity at work? After all, we are believers are we not?

I hope you liked the poem,

Yours,

Wic.