Gyres are a mass of circulating air and currents that are running in a spiral form; they are rings that whirl things round and in our deeply unreasonable present, plastics that spiral into pseudo-islands, killing those who attempt to land and also those snared in lost fishing nets. As gyres, all universities are solid and not solid; located but not local; eddies with morphing dissidents addled by administrative duties and electronic evaluation. Some attempt to legitimize the gyre with honorary speakers. But an honorary speaker hovers over the gyre and never goes ashore (because there is no shore). Has she kept her long hooded clit free of the Forever Chemicals whirling in a spiral, unsoaked? This seems unlikely. An American hood (academic, judicial, or vigilante) is cross-contaminated.

The animal who is your kin is called your warpiri. In the context of ngurlu, Daly Pulkara explained the meaning this way: warpiri is your “biggest sorry” (your greatest sorrow). In my words, warpiri is YOUR GRIEF. Your flesh and blood, flowing through the bodies of others who will be hunted, is your grief. You don’t have to grieve over everything; you couldn’t. But here, in this place of encounter with the necessary deaths of others, your grief may become extreme and so may your anger. If these deaths come about in defiance of Law, righteous anger is directed to those who have not managed death properly.