Let’s start with the entrails
because so much is written

in the viscera. They call it nature,
but where’s the line? Genes turn

on, turn on us, or hold harmless.
They call it nurture, but it’s wind

and rain that stress seeds to sprout:
post-traumatic transformation.

It takes a quarter century for our brains
to turn mindful, half to grow a soul,

another quarter for the spirit.
I don’t know what happens

after that, but I’ll guess leave-taking
—unpredictable, uneven, inevitable,

like an Irish good-bye or Swedish death
cleaning, fanning out our affairs like deck

chairs on a doomed vessel: a descent
from exquisite particularity to cliché.