Future Shock

On our way to maturation, when we’re adult-bound,
childhood’s denizens are most likely to astound.
Expressing new insights, they make statements bound to shock
that upon close scrutiny, their elders choose to mock.
Patterns of behavior that they, too, exhibited,
glorying in actions their elders once prohibited.
Thus does every generation choose to shock the last
as their predecessors fade into the past.
Time is a marsh that buries memories of old
as each new wave of humans discovers acts more bold.

Prompt words today are patterns, insight, scrutiny, marsh, childhood. Images by Tamara Bellis and Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.