About Those Adults

You grew up thinking about the adults
Evaluating you, and then your peers,
But if you’ve lived more than half

A century even, not that much,
It begins to dawn on you, you will
Be evaluated and found wanting,

More rarely admired, more frequently
Forgotten, by tomorrow’s children
And their children’s children,

While the adults for whose approval
You trained are gone already, mostly
Forgotten by you, their evaluating child.