Bonsai
We know what is left after roots have been cut
clean away, what remains after limbs have been pruned,
dwarfed by the lips of our sweet scissors,
the blades of our small knives.
And we have constructed ourselves in this same manner,
trimming back families and familiars to base essentials,
pruning back all that we've come from to all that we desire.
We have constructed our lives along the lines of the reductive,
waiting after every stinging cut to see if we can live
without that particular branch, that puny limb.
It's about what can be bent; branches cowed into curvature,
aesthetics dictating nature, and you and I watching
those square porcelain pots for a day or a decade
and maybe nothing will change, maybe one new leaf
in the space of eighty years, one new shoot.
And yet, we wait, learning slowly the distance
through which we can push ourselves,
the subtle growth of trees.
~William Reichard
clean away, what remains after limbs have been pruned,
dwarfed by the lips of our sweet scissors,
the blades of our small knives.
And we have constructed ourselves in this same manner,
trimming back families and familiars to base essentials,
pruning back all that we've come from to all that we desire.
We have constructed our lives along the lines of the reductive,
waiting after every stinging cut to see if we can live
without that particular branch, that puny limb.
It's about what can be bent; branches cowed into curvature,
aesthetics dictating nature, and you and I watching
those square porcelain pots for a day or a decade
and maybe nothing will change, maybe one new leaf
in the space of eighty years, one new shoot.
And yet, we wait, learning slowly the distance
through which we can push ourselves,
the subtle growth of trees.
~William Reichard