What Matters

They’ll say she can’t be saved,

That there’s no motivation to find,

They’ll pledge it’s a hopeless cause,

Tell us to quickly abandon the grind.

They’ll say he has no home life,

No father to call his own,

Try to persuade us it’s a hopeless cause,

That there’s no positive place to go.

We’ll read the grim statistics,

And hear from downtrodden adults,

The media will plead ignorance,

That they don’t understand these results.

But…

It matters that we show up,

It matters that we believe,

It matters that we have far-flung optimism

That others cannot conceive.

It matters that we listen,

It matters that we feed,

It matters that we give chance after chance, again and again,

To help a child succeed.

So, we close out another school year,

Knowing we spent all that humans can spend,

Because every child has possibility inside them,

And that’s what matters in the end.