The newspaper’s and journalist’s job is to bear witness to what is happening in the world. I try to take it all in and then digest. I read about the history of racism, the protests, and the way individuals are taking action. My medium is clay and paint and paper. These images are snapshots of how I put it together. I attempt understanding through the things I make and the ways they can be used. I am trembling, thinking, questioning, cooking, sitting at the table, talking and listening, and finally writing.
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, in Ledger, Alfred A. Knopf, 2020