Mistakes as Teachers

(A Manifesto)

Pride…

We, the flawed,

The fractured,

The ones who declare this truth:

Mistakes are not curses,

But compass-roses drawn with trembling hands.

Numbers…

Are not the focused worship,

For just as the scoreboard blinks zero,

We too will not be measured in digitsl

But in the depth of our becoming.

Accept the GPA as flattened,

For we are scholars of grief,

Students of persistence,

Scholars of the unquantifiable

Let salaries rise and fall,

For resilience is our value measure,

Wealthy in wonder,

Heirs in patient wait,

For the kingdom of

Trying again.

Credence…

We look at the fracture,

The crack in the vase

And see not a flaw,

But a place where light enters

And history breathes.

The typo..

Becomes an honored oops,

The misstep, the wrong turn that leads to

The appropriate question.

To cry…

Over spilt milk

Knows not our tears,

For we may mourn loss,

But we cry because the spill reveals

The terrain we were meant to plough.

Encouragement…

Is our rebellion,

The paradox worn like armor forged of silk,

Telling us: “You have fallen,

How glorious.  Now rise,

And push up the soil beside you.”

Error…

Is not feared,

We court it.

We dance with it in the margins of our drafts,

In the pauses between stanzas,

In the silence after rejection.

Yes…

We remain the artists of aftermath,

Sculpting from rubble,

Painting with ash,

Writing with the ink

Of every failed attempt that dared to speak.

Perfection…

We are not of such deftness,

But we are powerful.

We are not precise,

But are profound,

We are not finished,

But becoming.

Count your coins, world…

We will tally the times we chose

Courage over certainty.

All while greedy minds

Chase metrics.

We will chase meaning

As the abessive with the polish.

We will offer honesty.

Such is…

Our manifesto,

Signed in spilled milk,

Sealed with cracked light of gold,

And delivered to every soul

Who ever thought they weren’t enough.

We are of plenty.

We always were.

Especially when we erred.