When the worst happens,
silence, like an ambulance without siren, arrives.
A silence that doesn’t need the rest of the story.
It is the story.
—Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield’s most recent book is The Asking: New & Selected Poems. In 2024 she was the first American and the first woman to receive the Zhongkun International Poet Award, China’s foremost independent prize for a world poet.
