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A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy   
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Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy (1936 - / Detroit / United States)
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Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying .. more >>
21 poems of Marge Piercy
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  A Work of Artifice

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7.6 /10
(21 votes)



  The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.

Marge Piercy


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Read poems about / on: tree, nature, hair, work

 
  Comments about this poem (A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy )
Click here to write your comments about this poem (A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy )
 
  Glen Shorts  (2/2/2007 1:23:00 PM)

Congrats on the Slate pub: actually you might have something useful hear - not the inhumanity thing, but a way to save humanity. As I have advocated for more than 30 years, we should be shrinking homo sapiens so our impact on the world is less. Lets try for an average height of 3' and 40 pounds by 2100 and then take it from their to 6'

I can think of nothing so repulsive and overindulgent that a obese couch potato sheering 350# lard ass football players in a game that emulates our culture.

Keep up the good work. go grrl !
  Bobbie Goggins  (10/22/2005 8:47:00 AM)

I love this.
Would like more insight on 'the hands you love to touch.'
The bonzai tree's hands? The woman's? Both?
Of course.

Read all 2 comments >>
 
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7/4/2009 10:27:50 PM . You Are Here: A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy

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