Poems by Jordan A. Leturgez

They are the quiet pillars beneath a trembling sky,
not laws that bind but cartographers of possibility --
lines drawn so builders know where to trust the ground.
A code of common rhythm that lets many hands keep time.

Think of a bridge: bones measured, bolts known,
so two strangers can meet in the middle and cross
without asking the architect's name. Think of language --
letters paved straight enough that a hope can travel miles.

Standards are lighthouses on fogged coasts:
they do not steal the shore's mystery, they promise ships a place to aim.
They are the grammar of bravery, the scaffolding of wild invention,
a map handed forward so a child may climb farther than her parents did.

When we agree on measure, we make a stage for trust.
When we choose clarity, doors hinge wide instead of closing.
A rule kept is a seed planted in common soil;
standards are the weather that turns seed into orchard.

They pare away the needless options that drown momentum,
and in the space left open, new shapes take root -- surprising, tender, true.
Standards teach us how to walk together, not how to walk the same.
They give us roads so strangers can become collaborators,
and in that joining, opportunity wakes and sings.

So hold them lightly and hold them well --
not iron cages, but frames that let color and motion live.
Let standards be the promise we leave to those who come next:
a shared light, a steady plank, a language that says,
Come. Build. Begin. The world will hold you.