good morning and thank you thank you for the extraordinary opportunity to speak to you this
morning thank you for the last four years which with kovid maybe felt like 40. i could not have
made it here today without the resilience care and commiseration of all my graduating classmates
i want to thank my countless professors and mentors who guided me through the last four years
and whose generosity and wisdom will continue to carry me forward for years to come i want to thank
my mom and my grandparents for their unwavering support of everything i do and for showing me
that growth and learning are lifelong adventures and finally i want to thank my partner holden
thank you for the warmth and brightness you bring into my life each and every single day i love you
when i began preparing my remarks for this morning i knew which topic i wanted to address but not
exactly how to address it and as i went through my writing process i realized i
wasn't writing a speech but a poem and i would now like to read that poem for all of you today
in the early morning hours dark blue melted into yellow
as a cat awoke from sleep stirring gently purring mellow
the wind was cold the sky was gray february on a thursday he didn't know what those words meant
most days just came and then they went and like every other morning the cat went on his daily walk
his easy simple morning stroll to greet the mice around the block but the wind cooled warm
the clouds dimmed bright the cat's lean body tensed up tight they say that cats
can foretell when disaster will arrive and indeed that thursday morning he could feel it in his side
something something wasn't right it was as if the cold of night invaded but he continued on his walk
turning corners round the block and just as quickly as he'd let it go that tension again
began to grow and that same cold invaded sirens howled and wailed their screams a waking nightmare
not a dream the cat got scared and ran back home his mom always worried when he'd roam she
wasn't there neither was dad what's going on the world's gone mad their tv joined the siren choir
shelter cover beneath the falling fire he didn't know what those words meant he didn't know how
to prevent that whistling that last unearthly shriek of air when bombs were falling everywhere
and just before the roof gave in he heard the tv man again
russia has invaded he didn't know what those words meant he didn't know that war was war
he didn't know why the children cry he didn't know why the dark blue sky had bled from yellow
into red but he knew winter must always yield to spring sunflowers in the field
thank you and may we all find the strength to face evil with light thank you