The Nasher Sculpture Center has this cool thing called Target First Saturdays which involves free admission and stuff for the kids, and that’s where we spent our morning.  And when you consider that Klyde Warren Park is across the street, our Saturday morning and afternoon plans were set, and we didn’t have to spend a penny.

While at the Nasher I came across the Magdalena Abakanowicz piece “Bronze Crowd” and decided to take a somewhat goofy picture next to it.  Unoriginal idea, I know, and you’ll find a lot folks doing similar stuff online (cute kid pic).  I guess there’s just something funny about taking pictures next to headless statues.  But after looking at this pic a second time I’m reminded of my favorite poem, one in which my high school theater arts teacher made all her students memorize, and felt just a bit inspired.

I've become one with the art pic.twitter.com/UtWMB6QZ6K

— BagOfNothing (@bagofnothing) February 7, 2015

“If—” by Rudyard Kipling

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:

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 worn-out tools:

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!”

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.