Square Nails And Old Roses

I really need help on this potentially excellent poem.  Should S. one be S. three?  Is the pond a loose end?  Better if couple are Jess and Becky?  See what I mean? 

Square Nails And Old Roses

An autumn breeze quilts the farm pond.
Vanilla light leans into the hour
As the chimney's shadow creeps long.

A young couple filled with hope built
A log cabin with square nails and
Planted rosebushes in the door yard.

Now the pecan tree shelters them
Beneath marble markers that sum their lives.
Two more headstones simply say "baby."

Seasons turn by faith alone and
Children scatter leaving time at rest
Like an hourglass reclining on its side.

An old man, exiled by winter, leans
On his cane, picks the last rose
From the bush that entwines yesterday.

     -Dewell H. Byrd

I am not qualified to critique, but I prefer the young couple not have names.  And I expect a farm to have a pond.  It doesn't seem like a loose end.

Nice images.

What about a poem that is stanzas two and three?  I think the energy and tension are in those two.  The other stanzas pale hard in comparison.

Todd

Karen,  You are a poet and a reader of poems.  Those are the qualifications we need here at LastFriday.  

I like the title, Dewell.  Hard and Soft.  Like life.

All the energy is in the stanzas 2 and 3.   Gut-grabbing.

I don't need to know about autumn, old man, children.  I'd stay with what is powerful.   However, put the images in a seed-book.  You may be able to use them in another poem. 

If you change it to stanzas 2 & 3, it shortens it severely, but has the punch that life actually deals young/old couples.

Dewell,  Good poem that to many fingers have ripped up for you.   Not me.  I think this is a better picture than what the others saw:

A young couple filled with hope built
A log cabin with square nails and
Planted rosebushes in the door yard.


Seasons turn by faith alone and
Children scatter leaving time at rest
Like an hourglass reclining on its side.


Now the pecan tree shelters them
Beneath marble markers that sum their lives.
Two more headstones simply say "baby."

Great ideas... thanks.  I'm reluctant to squeeze this poem into two stanzas... am thinking about a middle stanza that speaks to hard times and soft times (winter/Summer) in their lives... then I'd have more of what I set out to write.  Your suggestions really got me thinking.  Thanks, Dewell. 
WELCOME ABOARD, KAREN.