The Clock Of Life

CARRY ON TUESDAY
http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com
asks us to use the first line of Robert H. Smith's poem entitled
'The Clock of Life'


THE CLOCK OF LIFE

The clock of life is wound but once!

From the second of our birth,

It unwinds, tick tock, every day

As it counts our time on earth.
Inexorable is its beat;
Unfeeling is its timing;
Right now it's counting out the time
That I have left for rhyming!
*
The clocks of life are not, I fear,
Like the shape on your kitchen wall;
They are not round, with numbers,
No, dear reader, not at all!
The clocks of life are wiggly things
On the endings of a cell.
And how long your cells will replicate,
These clocks of life can tell!
Inside each minute tiny 'thing'
That's called a telomere,
Is the date that you will cease to be,
Almost to the year.
Telomeres are like the tags
We find on our shoe-laces;
They sort of finish-off a cell,
And keep things in their places.
Telomeres cannot be seen
With the naked human eye,
Yet they are the photocopiers,
They decide when we will die.
A photocopy gets paler,
As it's copied time and again,
So it is with the human cell,
And the telomere says when
The cell is too weak to replicate
(And that means every cell).
Too soon your body gives up the ghost
And they sound the funeral bell.
*
Science may well discover
How to deal with telomeres,
But that will be in the future,
And it wont work in arrears.
So there is nothing for it,
But to just ignore the clock.
Quickly cover up your ears
When you hear it go 'Tick-tock'.
*

The real clocks of life.
*
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ANOTHER REMINDER

You're reading this on your computer;

You had enough money to spend.

But some, these days, are penniless,

Their tether is at an end.

The Banks have all recovered;

They breathe a sigh of relief.

But many people are suffering still,

The 'Crunch' was hardly brief.

This man may just be fooling,

Playing games of 'Let's Pretend'.

On the other hand, his money

May have come to an end.

When you're buying expensive presents

And your turkey's big and fat,

Give a thought to this gentleman

In his brave little Santa hat.

*