A boiling fowl is tough because of fibrous creep.  Some might say of the elderly eclectic gentleman , "He is a tough old bird."  Some one, incidentally,  and anatomically, is righter than they know.  I hope no one says of the gentleman, he is a fibrous creep !  We are all subject to this phenomenon of creep as we  become analogous to  our boiling cousin, the old rooster. 
      Muscle fibers, which have no real capacity to regenerate are crept among and replaced by fibrous strings of collagen, replacing over a lifetime both voluntary, involuntary and cardiac muscle fibers.  Healthy fat cells providing energy storage,  heat and insulation are emptied of their contents by Father Time and move to fibrous tissue replacement with the loss of fat and its function.  Bones and joints become brittle with  loss of mineral and relative increase in fibrous tissue replacing bone and cartilage. Toughened fibrous tissue surrounds the joints and the loss of resilience limits the range of motion.  Gravity flattens the feet which become longer and wider and the fibers around the joints stretch and hurt.
       If one takes a Petri dish and a batch of primitive undifferentiated mesenchymal cells and subjects the cells to varying oxygen tension and altered motion applications these cells have the capacity to metamorphose to differentiated cells.  In the case of the young they differentiate into fibroblasts, osteoblasts and chondroblasts.  the precursors of  fibrous tissue , bone or cartilage.  This elegant system when operating in the prime of life with mesenchymal cells in optimum environment,  perform in balance.  If the human mileau is changed to low oxygen tension and low motion,  over time the homeostatic state of the old,  excess fibrosis ensues.
        This is the hour- glass at work that spells the demise of the capacity of the magnificent primitive mesenchyme to differentiate selectively.  These cells form the framework for our body. The change is gradual and relentless as fibrous creep invades the spaces in the vital organ cells as well as the timbers that house  and protect them.
        Paradoxically, we become both tough and feeble;  tough and yet often more tender.  Succulent chickens and young Turks :  in time all become like boiling fowl !

Whenever the heart gives me a little epiphany and I feel eureka, the head often  says, "Better think about that again."  That's the problem of being human. Cognitive dissonance always giving trouble.
      It's early December now and for years the pianist played the piano at Christmas time with the family clustered around, violin and guitar and mandolin, singing the carols and hymns and bringing gifts. The carol, We Three Kings, has verses for our clustered individuals to easily sing and since only a few of the family sings well there is a comedic and awkward character to some of the singers , but it is fun!
         The lyrics of the hymn are well known and the gifts the Magi bring to the Holy Child are really tokens rather than gifts, prefiguring those travelers belief in the nature of the person for whom they have come.  Gold for the king, frankincense for the priest, myrrh for the sacrifice. Symbols     that are their recognition of what is to come.  The hymn leaves no room for doubt among Christians and it is a favorite subject as a pastiche of Matthew's account.
         T.S.Eliot's  poem,  "Journey of the Magi"  is deliberately incomplete and like all good poems leaves room for us. The one of the three  who is the narrator of the poem was alone then,  reflecting on his journey and his epiphany which seems to me,  Eureka, I think . He notes , It wasn't easy and it wasn't sure and there was  doubt." The epiphany for him was , and was not, a long time coming,  The poem stirs the soul because it reflects a thoroughly human person who has to grapple with the same uncertainties that  I and many others do..
         The narrator of the poem  has now the gift of distance and time to arrive at the paradox that out of death can come life   Eliot's creation tells,  and all of us need,  distance and time to arrive at what we arrive at. Someone said to me,  "I don't understand what you mean by that last sentence,  " life out of death "  It doesn't make any sense ."
          I sid , " Read the poem again .   I'm not going to tell you what I think it means.  It's not my job .  You are not a stupid man so you will have your own ideas and they are as good as mine, though you and I will never be as poetic as Eliot ! And we will never have to ride a thousand miles in the middle of winter on a camel to find out either . "