The beauty

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, The Beauty