<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" dir="auto"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Separation Wall</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><br></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">When the milk is sour,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">it separates.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The next time you stop speaking,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">ask yourself why you were born.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">They say they are scared of us.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The nuclear bomb is scared of the cucumber.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">When my mother asks me to slice cucumbers,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I feel like a normal person with fantastic dilemmas:</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Do I make rounds or sticks? Shall I trim the seeds?</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I ask my grandmother if there was ever a time</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">she felt like a normal person every day,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">not in danger, and she thinks for as long</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">as it takes a sun to set and says, Yes.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I always feel like a normal person.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">They just don’t see me as one.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">We would like the babies not to find out about</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the failures waiting for them. I would like</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">them to believe on the other side of the wall</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">is a circus that just hasn’t opened yet. Our friends,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">learning how to juggle, to walk on tall poles.</span></p><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Naomi Shihab Nye</div></div></body></html>