If

“Can we practice our poem while we wait?” a 5th grade class asked me as we were waiting for their next teacher to arrive.

I was standing at the back of the room, one foot out the door, on the verge of irritation that I was about to be late to my next obligation.

“If, by Rudyard Kipling,” the class started.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;”

I started to pay attention, impressed by their unity and struck by what I heard them saying.

“If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;”

I was ripped out of my reality for a few moments and stood there, unexpectedly moved to tears by their ten-year-old voices chanting these words.

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;”

Some of the fifth graders in that room have faced tragedies that I can only imagine. Some of them are so innocent that it makes my heart break thinking about how much I want to protect them but cannot.

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

“Write those words on your souls,” I wanted to tell them but did not, for fear that my voice might crack. Instead, I just said, “thank you,” and turned to leave, knowing that I have work to do.