Introduction, Exit

Infants, with their dewy skin
and deliciously malleable and soft
extremities, their wisps of silken hair
and dreamily appealing faces capture
hearts, to be coddled and cuddled,
their safety and well-being secured
from harm, their eyes to focus,
their minds beginning to glimmer
reason, their future a challenge to
anxious parents, adoring grandparents
bewitched and bedazzled by the
impish mischief and bland innocence.
Soon enough, the advanced
generation evinces failures of the
senses in lock-step with the growing
acute awareness of the succeeding
generation. Eyes and ears become
deranged and unreliable, memory
balks and ease of movement
impaired within the wizened carcase
of the once-robust. The never-ending
story of the living organism's
birth, awareness, facility, collapse.