ASTER...(DRAFT)

Looking for a simple, gentle poem that carries a plaintive message (Where is spellcheck when you need it?).... Not sure if the stanzas are in the best order... and anything else you note... Dewell

ASTER

Blue
As a Parish sky
Nodding

In a gentle breeze
Damp with memory of
The s0ft night

Weathered
Stem and leaves fight
Careless traffic

Roots
Cling to sparse
Dirt, drought, storm

Home
In the crack
Of a broken concrete sidewalk

No one tells it where to grow.
Why must they tell me where to
Root, grow, bloom?

     -Dewell H. Byrd

Dewell, I never see Parish and sky used together, so it grabbed me right off.  I trust that is a beautiful blue sky?  A wild aster?  For some reason I'd like to see weathered stem and leaves together and fight on a line by itself.  Could you say, "At home" instead of Home?  Dewell, I don't need the last stanza.  It changes the direction of the poem.  I like the reporting part on the Aster.  I wonder if I see wild asters alongside the highways here.  I think I do.  Powdered blue?  I'll be looking.  Thank you for sharing this sight.

Dewell,  Great poem.  I like the way it drew blue to my mind's eye immediately. I don't know the color of a parish sky, but it has to be a beautiful blue to match the aster. I do note that the first two stanzas are a calm and peaceful picture while the last four are conflict.  Maybe not chaos, but conflict.  There are two pictures, the first of peace and beauty and the second of angst. It would be less so without the last stanza. That stanza does change the mindset from the flower to human conflict. I'm not saying take it out, just pointing out what I see. Good pictures here.

Dewell,  my experience with finding poems in the back of anthologies by title and first line would produce:  "'Aster' Blue."  Thus I lobby for new line breaks.

We discussed at Lucidity why free verse poets who don't use punctuation retain the question mark?  The State Critic of Ark believes that free verse should have full punctuation or none at all.

ASTER

Blue as a parish sky
Nodding in gentle breeze

Damp with the memory
Of soft night

Weathered stem and leaves
fight careless traffic

Roots cling to sparse
Dirt, drought, storm  (Roots cling to a storm?)

At home in the crack
Of a broken concrete sidewalk

Why must others tell me
Where to root, grow, bloom

I love the spare quality of this poem.  I lobby for adios to all punctuation and capitalization.  I would also bid farewell to most of the articles and some of the conjunctions and prepositions. 

A major haircut may necessitate some line break changes for clarity, but I think the poem would come out shining brighter.

Good poem, Dewell.

Sorry to hijack this post, but what would this poem look like with limited articles and conjunctions?