<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 dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Before I was a Gazan</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I was a boy</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">and my homework was missing</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">paper with numbers on it</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">stacked and lined,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I was looking for my piece of paper,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">proud of this plus that, then multiplied, not remembering if I had left it</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">on the table after showing to my uncle </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">or the shelf after combing my hair</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">but it was still somewhere</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">and I was going to find it and turn it in, </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">make my teacher happy,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">make her say my name to the whole class,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">before everything got subtracted</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">in a minute</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">even my uncle</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">even my teacher</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">even the best math student and his baby sister</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">who couldn’t talk yet.</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">And now I would do anything</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">for a problem I could solve.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> - Naomi Shihab Nye</div></div></body></html>