Spot the Differences (MacCurdy House Graduation Party Edition)

These pictures make me smile

although I will miss these young people so much.

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Love Wolf

My companion through it all.

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Asifa 2

I could be asleep
but I keep hearing her
hollow with hunger
elegiac from pain

there is the smiling face
there is the stilled corpse
in the same (only?) dress
her silence is my voice

with all its broken bones
the secret, broken seams
dreaming of home, return-
ing to an unbroken body

She knows more than I do
and yet like any child asks
why why why why
why why why why

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Asifa 1

Asifa died in January
it was April when I learned
it is always already too late

We walk alone to the river
to the horse, to our homes
our thoughts catching

on branches of doubt
of light, rupture our
cruel, fool-ish world

Justice for Asifa

I feel a murderous rage coming on. I can't get the story of this child's face out of my head.

My dad was fond of the radical Tamizh poet Bharathiyaar who claimed, “Thani oruvanukku unavillai enil jagathinai azhithiduvom” (If even just one person does not have sustenance, let's burn down the whole world). 

And that's how I'm feeling today. No one deserves to be happy, no one deserves to live. Let's just nuke the planet and be done with this. 

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Bits and Bobs

Last class for this academic year, and our class went downtown to the new frozen custard place. I like joking that it's the closest thing we have to a Sri Lankan restaurant in Alma because its name is Serendipity.

On our way back we bumped into the sweetest, cutest, eight-week old puppy. His name is Yogi. LOOK AT THAT FACE! JUST LOOK! Yogi is a very good boy and trots along happily except when he's turning around to look for all the new friends who give him pets.

Full admission: I saw Yogi for the first time yesterday when I was turning into the parking lot at school, and I totally rolled down my window and screamed, "so cute, SO CUTE!!" I guess I'm practically a TLC song now.

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Sweet Meets

'Someone' stopped by my office and claimed that they weren't at all homesick, but lingered for over an hour to just talk, requested a bunch of food from home, told me he missed us ("Not all the time, okay? Just when we're all texting on family chat and stuff"), and even let me take his picture. I'm glad he's not homesick, but am so happy from getting some time with him.

I may have once wished that he'd choose head hair or face hair, but this groomed beard and tiny bun look really nice on him... in a hipster Chewie kind of way.

As he was leaving the English bay, I bumped into Sophfronia Scott who'd come to read for us last term, and whom I'd kept in touch with (via FB mostly). Turns out that she was on her way to a lit festival in Grand Rapids, and stopped over to see us. In an odd way, it feels like we've shared thoughts for a long, long time--it was lovely to see her again, and hang out at the coffeeshop for a while.

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