Arriving at a poem

[Paulclem]

I wondered if you'd be interested in how I wrote a particular Tanka in the summer. I was looking over the ones I'd done and saw three versions of the poem I wanted to write when I started it. I don't mean I'd got the clear idea I wanted to express, but the first two versions didn't seem to say what I wanted. I remember thinking that there was something more I wanted to express. Is it like this for you? I'd be interested to see hear what you do when developing poems.

We chopped foliage
and cleared the brambles and grass.
The overgrown space
was mainly air when we raked
green bundles into the fire.

This then became:

The cleared foliage
amounted to few bundles.
They burned quickly.
Despite looking overgrown,
all that green was mostly space.

I still felt there was something else I was trying to say better and I finally wrote this one:

The cleared foliage
amounted to few bundles
smoking in the fire.
Despite looking overgrown,
all that matter's only space.

I have an alternative final line in my notebook too:

all that green was mostly space.

I think the first one says more but I'd be interested to see what you think about this too.