The clock of ages:

"Verse, Fame and Beauty are intense indeed
But death intenser-Death is life's high mead"
-- J. Keats

Or perhaps, the sun's battery spent
Wires of our clock, less pink,
Skin is like the test of love
It glows, it grows within its pattern
Errors of energy, or, the elastic kiss
Belongs not to time but to life's tick
Amoeba, bacteria, slime's sweet split
Vein to vein, this throb of light,
Blood that mates within its fuel
A pendulum of candles and bells or 
Beams more bright because of our pulse,
Our polarity, collagen, calcium and trust
Dark noise, the same ripe pus
It lives, it thrives along its coil
As its template and gift, we are
Or must become the wrinkled path,
The held paste, the ion touch,
The flicker that wastes from birth
As glands or dials of sweat belong
Not to death but to membranes of us.

Paul Kloppenborg


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