Mere Mortal

Slowly fading off, a million cells,

Ageing - unstoppable, zealously at work

Warding off with congenital agility, human craving for youthful charm and longevity 

Pestilence, pandemics, toxic effluents within and without,

 Taking the wind out of the relentless human battle to stay on

No trick good enough to stop the clock.

 The wrinkles are smoothened out, the gym eroded for toned sculpted looks

But the telomeres have shrunk, the cartilage squeezed out;

The plaques making insidious inroads into thoughts;

Tomes on the body being ageless and the mind timeless feed the scholarly

While the sapien hurtles through her finite existence. 

The algae, the fungi, innumerable flora, and fauna have been churned and bottled;

Selling promises to the wrinkled and mottled;

to put back the clock, smoothen the ravage of existence;

but the life clock-indefatigable- programmed for persistence.

Only on celluloid, an undying human passion realized, 

Through the cryogenic marvel in Sonoma valley -the ageless Adaline.

What if we learn to conquer senility 

Would then, being mere mortals, be a felicity?