The power of punctuation

Yesterday it rained. Now, the tulips, rhododendrons, and daffodil petals litter the garden floor. But it looks like today will in fact be a good day to get into the garden.

For me a rainy day is a day to write. I did in the early morning. Yesterday was also a day for me to visit the local garden center. The garden bordering the moon garden is on tap today. Some prep was done for this garden last weekend but today is the big day to replant it. It will be a shrub garden with a red theme. I also went to the lumber yard to buy new wood for the vegetable garden. I think this year we'll use raised beds. Anyway, more on this later. Let's look at the recent dilemma.

Editing is an important part of writing. Edit: thinks correct, adapt, cut, eliminate, revise, prepare [for publication] etc. I do a lot of editing of my own work but I also reach out to respected peer poets. In this latest case a peer expertly suggested a revision of line breaks.

18 lines tightened to 12
Impact: the poem is much more powerful because each line is strong -- less fragmented.

In the original version the line breaks of these words flowed as follows:
["the cut of blade jagged/desire unwanted/children..."]

The suggested edits are : ["the cut of blade -- jagged--desire /unwanted children..."]

The tightening is good. The problem is that it's not the children which are unwanted. It's the adult's presence unwanted by the child.

There are many possible additional edits under consideration.
1. put a comma after the word unwanted so it reads "unwanted, children..." (problem is the poem is w/o punctuation currently)
2. move unwanted up a line so it reads "jagged --desire unwanted/children..." (problem is the line is too long then -- breaks the rhythm)
3 remove the word desire (changes meaning)

it's not the only dilemma. I also have a decision to make with ["a penny in a fountain/ without water --we wish you gone --silent..."] vs. ["a penny in a waterless fountain/we wish you gone - silent/"]

Anyway. The poem is called Rough Cut. It's a day old so it's VERY early in it's editing lifecycle. Sometimes it's good to ponder these poetic dilemmas from a different vantage point. Say, the garden. The "red" garden. I think that's what I'll do!