In honour of Shape, a new ten-year strategic plan for the U of A, the U of A commissioned a spoken word poem from School of Business grad Nisha Patel. Nisha performed the poem during the launch of Shape on Sept. 19, and is sharing it on The Quad for the U of A community to enjoy.
knowledge hoarded without empathy is just greed
and success without compassion is just inequity
longing for change with hands tied in dollar signs
is an exercise in shrinking, not prophecy
a plan is not made of paper and ore and ink
set intangibly in the sky of our brave satellites
what we hold here is rich in soil deep as the plough goes
a gift of abundance given to us like the Bruderheim meteorite
and it is a skill to take something that hurtled towards us
churn that angry metal from stone to science and poetry
it is the most sacred ritual of educators and journey-makers
to protect, through knowledge, each person’s yet unknown trajectory
and when the gates to these halls have to close on a single person
a universe of movement and boiling stars risks collapse
the heaviness of denial weighs like old age on everyone
who has committed today to make futures stardust and open paths
and if we fail here
we can still fail fast by imagining freely
and fiercely
and forward
only the radicals are welcomed here
in the practice of building habits of sharing
knowledge-making and dreaming
in solutions, like DNA strings, repeating
we can burrow deep in our experiments
in how to build something of sky and sponge
a sample size of one is always more data than nothing
and sometimes that is all it takes to get one project done
a vision without action is just a day-dream
and a visionary working alone leads no one
a goal set in speeches on first days and unveilings is just noise
unless it lands in our hearts and sends pulses of hope through our neurons
and personally speaking, I have sometimes been lonely here
I have struggled for my chance to learn through winter sleet
but like mice I have made a home of Tory basement and corner CAB cafeteria
and the spines lining the walls of Education’s leather-bound theses
I have had to learn that seeking knowledge can isolate us if we do it in fear
make targets of those who walked like my father did
from a village of six-hundred in drought to the back roads
of my home in Old Strathcona
the treatise of teaching and fostering and governing is multidimensional
holds more than a two-way dynamic equilibrium
like water cycling from South to North Campus
we are all part of a system that relies on countering constant unknowns
and if we are lucky enough to know that the present lives here
in this place that requires attention, tenderness, and nurture
then we know that history needs for us to do better
that we are lucky to be entrusted to build the future
and we leave this place in states of radicality
and uncovered, we are given back to the new and old world
we become planetary gravities and multiplying metamorphoses
we take on the responsibility of creating green and gold and good
