Maturity (to a riff by Djavan)
by I-P
Beware of little toddlers
who believe they are grown
they cling to law and order
whether it is right or wrong
authority and structure
is what they think they need to get them through their day
so much so the smallest rupture
leaves them lethally afraid
with medieval credulity
for any official line
a status quo of immaturity
underwritten by the times
tradition and bureaucracy
superstition and fear
witch hunts and inquisitions bind
in Chains of Being Spirits here
and Beware all the young children
who believe they are grown
all vying for attention
whether it is for doing right or wrong
authority and structure
are just a games for them to cheat at, lose or win
success, status, approval
betray them all in the end
mercantile ambitions
entrepreneurial conceits
all life becomes a competition
who with starve and who will eat
see all the clever children
asking Darwin or God to sanctify their greed
enslaved by the possessions
that never give what they need
and Beware of Adolescents
who believe they are grown
who have such naive good intentions
who think they know all that's known
Reactionary Science and pseudo-egalitarian aims
exclusion and collusion and
betrayal end that game
Rousseau begets Napoleon
Marx; Stalin and Mao
(clever children who step in through gaps
all vain vanguards allow)
Begin with dream and flattery
and end with purge and fear
idealism's shadow blights
the future that it claims to hold so dear
So where are the Grown People
who know they are grown?
Who for the seventh generations
claim both light and shadow as their own?
who with humor and compassion
can include themselves with everybody else
and nurture sanity and healing
inside and outside of themselves?
Where are the Adult People
who know that they are grown?
Do the good lack all conviction
does each believe they're alone?
Are they beaten and distracted
by a world designed by children
run by fear?
where are the adult people?
I'm waiting for you right here.
This work by I-P is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
