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It’s not so difficult, we tell our students, not so difficult that you should despair or forget dreaming. There are others here in this room and beyond who will gather, humans and non-humans alike, though you may not know them yet, may not know their stories or their lives. Yet don’t expect the task to be easy; do not assume it will take less than a lifetime. It will take more. Hope is like that: sometimes a sunken stone, sometimes a silver maple leaf slipping across currents, sometimes a mallard rising fast and jewel-like in the morning, another drop in the great watershed of things. Your choice is whether to imagine: the leaf, the light, the green sheened feathers, the sounds of a river, the stories—our choice is whether to work.(Stephen Siperstein, 2015)