Growing Up or Growing Down?

That "science" article about animals remembering things from the past "proving" they don't have a conception of the past motivates this post.

Growing Up or Growing Down?
copyright 1987 Patricia M. Shannon

Most people I know are like ants in a hill,
not thinking, just acting as part of the mass.
Like half-alive puppets they walk in a daze,
when they try to converse, they just talk in cliches.

They say they worship different gods,
sometimes none at all.
But their gods are all the same,
"everybody else" and monetary gain.

Mixed feelings I get when I play with a child,
so eager to learn and so ready to grow;
such sorrow I feel when I see how we crush children's spirits
in order to make them like us.