Also, if you believe there are ways to improve the quality of the form, without sacrificing the essence of the original, I'm very much open to suggestions (or hell, a complete reworking of it).

I think it is likely that, somewhere in spoken-word-space, there exists a poem that accomplishes everything the original prose did, while having a more beautiful form. I think that poem would have to have changes so extensive that it would effectively be a different work. I could be wrong about that. But it seemed likely, and my goal was to preserve the original, so I went in a different direction.