I much prefer the original, Jim. To look at the differences between the two is to see how the necessary details are then mutilated by the unnecessary. Of course, with any poem like this, the trick is to avoid sentimentality. The final lines work toward that but I still feel as if you could cut back further. What if the poem could only be 10 lines: or 8? How quickly cut between the born and the dying? Why "grandma"? Do you want the narrator to be a dispassionate observer, or the involved voice that the involved choice of "grandma" evokes. "somewhereness" after "somethingness" I think is rather like overkill and sounds hollow. I think you have a weakness for the vague mystical phrase, but that phrase is only useful if the specific has evidently been exhasted: rendered unworthy.
Keep working on this.
Hope this helps.
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