BONSAI

by Edith Tiempo

All that I love

I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe.

All that I love?

Why, yes, but for the moment-
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a queen,
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.

It’s utter sublimation,

A feat, this heart’s control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand’s size

Till seashells are broken pieces

From God’s own bright teeth,
And life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child.

Analysis:

When love is great, when love is profound, it becomes more difficult to control. And in the hands of people who
are unable to control it, love overwhelms the person. This is the destructive nature of love which is why the
award-winning poet Edith Tiempo, in her poem Bonsai, scaled down love into a “cupped hand size.”

The poem is an example of a work that is objective-correlative wherein the ideas depicted are abstract. In this
work of literature, love is the abstract idea.

In the first stanza, Bonsai describes everything one loves as something that could be folded into the smallest
size so that one could “keep in a box/ Or a slit in a hollow post/ Or in my shoe.” The idea is to turn one large
concept such as love into something that “folds and keeps easy” so that one’s memory will not be cluttered.
Memory stays with a person forever but it is often unreliable which is why there is a need to simplify love if it
has become overwhelming so that it is easy to handle and quick to retrieve the memories from the labyrinths of
the mind.

Then there came the question in the next line that said, “All that I love?” The interrogative statement was posed
for self-examination which was, in the next stanza, assured with the lines “Why, yes but for the moment-/ And
for all time, both.” The two lines are an oxymoron for love can be both temporal and eternal. It was like saying
often one remembers a lover but there are times when he does not.

Tiempo even made love familiar and within reach by reducing it to things that people use and hold dear such as
“Son’s note, or Dad’s gaudy tie,/ A roto picture of a young queen/ A blue Indian shawl, even/ A money bill.”
By using these objects in the poem, Tiempo portrayed the sublimation of love as something that is abstract like
gas penetrating the vast space surrounding two people into something that is concrete like a solid object that one
can hold unto and control.
The next stanza tells about how when love is sublimated, it is made into something positive. The lines, “A feat,
this heart’s control/ Moment to moment/ To scale all love down/ To a cupped hand size” pertain to one’s
victory in sublimating and taking hold of love so that it will not be destructive. A cupped hand was the
metaphor specifically used to convey the image of asking and giving love to another. It signifies the lover’s
basic needs, that which is “the need to love and be loved.”

In the line, “Till seashells are broken pieces” the mystery of how something so vast such as the ocean can be
heard from something so small such as a seashell. It is the same with love, that something so vast and huge can
be contained in a small thing is a mystery.

The essence of the poem is that love is simplified and reduced so one can hold it in one hand and pass it on to
another.

The speaker in Edith Tiempo’s poem begins by presenting an image of feeling secure by keeping things that she
holds dear. In the second stanza, however, she starts to question this attitude of keeping earthly things. In the
third stanza, she explicitly mentions that keeping earthly things is an absolute self-gratification. This
questioning leads directly into the last stanza, where she implores the readers to share (hand over) material
(breathless) things of their control to the needy (merest child) as all material things are but temporary but life
and love are real. The obvious tension in this poem is between a sense of materialism and an idea of spirituality.
“Bonsai” clearly amounts to more than just questioning the exaltation of keeping material things. It is dealing
with more general questions of what we cling on to and what may unsettle us in life.

The first stanza is telling us how good it makes the speaker feel to keep little and foldable things in a box
deliberately. The opening images create a sense of security for the speaker. It is not just the images she chose
but also the simplicity and regularity of the opening lines, particularly the sense of balance of her monosyllabic
lines (Lines 1 and 2). Line 1 and 3 are made up of 4 syllables while 2 and 4 are made up of 5. Moreover, the
word “once” is repeated twice (line 3 and 4) in the same stanza and in successive lines showing the intensity of
her love for doing such a thing as keeping something.
All that I love
I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box.

The second stanza, however, repeats the first line in the first stanza but this time the speaker uses a question
mark and the question word “why” in the second line. The tension is presented in these structures where the
speaker in the first stanza presented a sense of contentment and security in the things she keeps. It is where the
tension is introduced because the proposition she begins with in the first stanza is now contradicted in the
attitude she presents in the opening of the second stanza:
All that I love?
Why, yes, but for the moment-
And for all time, both.

Then she goes on to name the things she loves to keep. Naming or labeling in literature implies an idea that if
we can name the world then we can control it. Then, we begin to think about the kind of order that people create
in life (Peck and Coyle, 1995). How this kind of order she wants to create is particularly noticeable in the way
she describes the things she names:
Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a queen,
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.

All the things she enumerates are modified (gaudy tie, roto picture, blue Indian shawl, money bill) except the
first one – son’s note. If we take a look into the commonality of the modifiers she uses, we can come up with an
impression she is trying to create. All these words suggest “showiness”. The first object she names standing
alone without a modifier suggests that it’s the only thing worth keeping as it is not as gaudy a possession as the
rest. It is the only thing mentioned that does not have a monetary value. It is also interesting to note that shawl
here has two modifiers: blue and Indian. Blue as a distinctive color represents excellence and royalty while
Indian cloth (from which the shawl is made), particularly silk is considered as one of the world’s finest. The
meaning of the “blue Indian” shawl is therefore tied up parallel with “gaudy” (showy) because if we take note,
both tie and shawl are being worn to be shown. Furthermore, son’s note which is more generally kept is drawn
parallel against Dad’s one gaudy tie which is generally worn. These contrasting objects she first mentions and
those that followed with monetary value lead the speaker to question (all the things that I love?) their meaning
to her. The theme of the poem is also brought to life by her mentioning of only one object worth keeping (the
one she mentions first) but it can also suggest that even the son’s note itself is meaningless except for what it
says which can be kept in her heart.

The speaker becomes more explicit of presenting her case in the third stanza. She now depicts the attitude of
self-exaltation and gratification in keeping earthly things when in fact it is an attitude we can control if our heart
so desires:
It’s utter sublimation,
A feat this heart’s control
She goes on further to suggest that as this fascination of vainly collecting earthly things goes on, it tends to
diminish the true meaning of love.
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand’s size
This is the part of the poem which relates directly to its title. Bonsai refers to a plant which is dwarfed or
controlled to render more beauty to its beholder. In the context of this poem, however, it is an irony presented.
Bonsai here is “scaling down all love” which could mean that we control our hearts from giving what we can
give, making our hearts so small. It’s therefore contrary to the idea of making a bonsai which needs to be
trimmed, to be cut its main root in order to show its beauty just like sharing what we can share to make our life
worth living.

The last stanza concludes the poem by presenting an imagery of destruction of earthly things and the implied
security religion offers. While nature (seashells) presented in the first line here shows human destruction, the
second line shows the redemptive power of God during the judgment day (bright teeth):
Till seashells are broken pieces
From God’s own bright teeth,

The use of metaphors (till seashells are broken pieces/ from God’s own bright teeth) tells us that all things in
this world including humans will come to an end and in the end we will be judged according to our deeds. The
imagery presented about God in the second line (From God’s own bright teeth) evokes a scary feeling on God’s
authority. It seems to warn the readers that being preoccupied with earthly things is vain and dangerous. The
last three lines thus implore the readers to share what they can to those who are in need (the merest child in this
poem) to make their life meaningful because life and love are real considering the associated promised second
life after the judgment. It is with God’s authority to redeem those who have done good deeds and, of course,
trusting in His divine mercy and grace:
And life and love are real
Things you can run and breathless hand over
To the merest child.

Life on earth is but temporary and whatever we cling on (things we can run or control because they are
breathless or lifeless) will all be lost. Notice further the temporariness presented by the author by making the
first stanza into five lines but then such temporary happiness brought about by material things is disrupted by
the irregularity of the second and the third. Then she goes back to five lines in the fourth (last) stanza but this
time she conveys the resolution of the conflict/tension. This poem tells us that the things we hold dear may give
us happiness and security but the happiness and security they offer are but temporal yet life on earth is so short.
Like the implied meaning of the title of this poem, it takes some sacrifice and pain for the bonsai to be trimmed
and to be cut off of its main root in order for it to show its real beauty. Indeed, it is not easy to give up what we
hold so dear for the sake of others but as the poem suggests it can make our life sublime like the bonsai.