“One up!” “Two down!”

Two rural teenagers waiting on a bench
aware of naivety in urban fashion-sense:
‘One up’ ‘two down!’ ‘one down’ ‘oh,three up, there!'
– with clothes of passers-by, their own compare!

Their moods would fluctuate from boost of pride
to glumness, gloom, embarrassment they’d slide:
their confidence would plummet, want to hide,
retreat – be cocky in the countryside.

*****

Drifting along, judging colleagues on the way:
(One up, two down), choosing how to weigh
their surface faults, strengths, flaws to estimate
– with prejudicial jigging of the ‘measure-weight’.
    
“We’re criticising them, for they do us.”
“They are not fair, they just unkindly guess.”
(Do they? because they’re thinking you do too?)
(is your opinion, judgement of them true?)

None but deity can accurately tell
our faults (and theirs), and know our motives well.
And he, at least is willing to forgive,
and help us bear frail ways of failing folk
with whom we daily work and love and live.

[IP: a piece of prose or a poem that you can imagine yourself reading out loud to an audience - and take as your theme - 'observing the human condition'.]