'Time'

Hollie Canning wrote this poem for the recent Junior Poetry Prize:

'Time'

Sometimes I wish we could just
STOP...
Slow life down, embrace the moment...
Capture the scene, the clock ticks,
A memory stored.

Seconds you must cherish,
They will never return.

The clock is our leader.
We eat when it chimes.
We sleep when it ticks.
We wake when it rings.

Time defines us;
   Small cute and sweet,
   Tall, obnoxious, dismissive,
   Old, wrinkling, shrinking.
A baby born, an elder dies.

Our time will soon flash by
Like a ticking time-bomb.
Tick.
   Tock.
      Tick.
         Until BANG.

         Silence.

         Darkness.

         Peace.