Measuring Up

Measuring Up

You stand in line for a school bus
a bag on you back almost as tall as you.
A little fish in big pond
eager to learn to swim.

As the ocean waits, you learn
to cross your “t’s” and dot your “i’s”
and stay in between the lines.

Right now you understand, very little,
of you or of I, and of our place
in this large world
you stand on the cusp of.

Shoulders back, you are on
the brink of understanding
that you must measure up…

to your peers, to your society,
to your world of which
you understand so little.

Bagged on your back
you tote
the weight of the world.

As you wait to board the bus that takes you
to learn to cross your “t’s” and dot your “i’s”
and stay within the lines.

The world waits, with baited breath,
as defined knowledge filters through –
the person you
have already become.

Standing as a group, we wait
while your questions of wonder
are answered with
our predetermined truths.

We, forgetting it is us
that must measure up…
to your expectations
of what the world could mean.

The possibilities of us
are determined by you
and the heights of which
you set the bar.

In the end how you choose to
cross your “t’s” and dot your “i’s”
while staying within the lines that you draw,

will determine
how we measure up
as students of
our own humanity.

©Delaina Miller 2012