Haruspex

Life-sized bronze model of a sheep's liver with a diagram and Etruscan inscriptions used in haruspicy, or divination, found at Piacenza, Italy

. . . the king of Babylon . . . at the fork of the two roads . . . looks at the liver.—Ezekiel 21:21 (NKJV)

The liver, romantic ancients believed,

Was the seat of love and passion.

But Etruscan seers were not so deceived

When, in their haruspical fashion,

They plunged their hands into a sacrifice's guts

To grab its bulk and pull it from the paunch.

Postfactual hepatology avers today the liver is the seat of doubt,

Our best defense against certainty's ten thousand cuts,

Whence we may trip musing down the primrose path,

And, bypassing greedy heart and noisy brain,

Seek out the winning secrets of the human strain,

Its liverish panoply of ifs, ands, and buts.

Tuesday, August 14, 2025