The Bonsai

Bonsai All that I love I dig up over once And once again And keep in a box Or a moolah in a empty post Or in my shoe. All that I love? Why, yes, only when for the secondment And for altogether time, both. Something that folds and keeps easy, Sons n peerless or prot affectiniums sensation gaudy tie, A roto picture of a teenage queen, A unrelenting Indian shawl, even A bills bill. Its utter sublimation A feat, this totalitys control Moment to moment To scale tout ensemble love d throw To a cupped lots size, Till seashells argon broken pieces From Gods own opalescent teeth. And life and love be received Things you poop pass and dyspnoeal hand overTo the merest child. Edith L. Tiempo * * * A first reading of Edith L. Tiempos signature poesy is a tad confounding, for the first lady of Philippine poetry in English deploys the centripetal-centrifugal-centripetal (or inward- placeward-inward) motion in expressing her profoundest thoughts and deepest feelings closel y love. The title itself, Bonsai, is a puss misleading, since nowhere else in the poem are there any and references to plant life or the ancient Japanese technique of cultivating light trees or shrubs through dwarfing by selective pruning.Some might even reason out that Origami is the better title choice, for at least the contri exclusivelyions act of folding objects is a bit analogous to the Japanese art of paper folding to make complicated shapes. scarcely this reader volition try out at the end of this essay that Bonsai is the nearly countenance title for the poem, something that is not quite obvious to most people after their perfunctory estimate of this often misread literary masterpiece. However, despite the false lead, even a cursory perusal of the poem reveals to the sensitive and sensible reader that Bonsai is about love, if only because the four-letter name is mentioned in either four stanzas.In the first stanza, the persona declares that she folds everything that she loves and keeps them hidden in secret places a box,/ Or a slit in a hollow post,/ Or in my shoe. // What then are the things she considers imperative enough to keep? At first glance, the catalogue of her pricey objects in the second stanza appears to be disparate, unrelated, almost random, if not completely aleatory. But since a literary sorceress like Tiempo seldom commits mistakes in conjuring appropriate stunt mans, then there must a be reason for singling out these particular items and not some others.The more important query therefore is this What do Sons note or Dads one gaudy tie,/ A rotoi picture of a young queen,/ A blue Indian shawl, even/ A money bill. // share in vulgar? Besides macrocosm foldable and thus easy to keep, they must constitute for the loving female persona important individuals and incidents in her life. For as the semiotician Roland Barthes correctly ob administers in A shaftrs Discourse all(prenominal) object touched by the loved beings proboscis sounds part of that body, and the subject eagerly attaches himself to it. ii If we are to assume that the speaking region of Bonsai closely resembles the poets own, then the first three objects must stage members of her immediate family son Maldon husband Edilberto (It is a well-known fact among composition fellows and panelists of the Silliman Writers Workshop that Edith fondly called the late fictionist and literary critic Dad, while being addressed by her husband as Mom, which is a common institutionalize among Filipino couples. and daughter Rowena (Unknown to many, the current Program Administrator of the Iowa Writers Workshop is a former winner of the Miss Negros Oriental beauty contest onetime(prenominal) in the 1970s, another indicator of the Filipino flavor of the poem, since the Philippines is a pageant-obsessed deuce-ace gear World country. ). The referents of the last two items are more covert and thereby more difficult to decipher. At best, we can only speculate on the persons and/or events that make the two things significant blue Indian shawl (Ediths engagement date with Edilberto, her first winter in Iowa, her last tumble in Denver? money bill (Her initial salary from Silliman University, bills prize from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature? ). In the long run though the indeterminacy of the allusions does not really matter, for the opaqueness of the symbols leads not to generic wine obscurity and obfuscation, but to personal mythology and mystery. Perhaps part of the poems message is that the things a person considers memorable and therefore valuable most other people might think of as debris, detritus or dirt. Note that the adverb even modifying money bill is used to indicate something unprovided for(predicate) or unusual, which in the context of the poem seems to suggest that a money bill is not a conventional object to collect and treasure even by the most sentimental of persons. ) Suffice it to say that all five objects, which are outwardly ordinary and nondescript, acquire associative significations because they serve for the poetic persona as conduits of recall, like mementoes, souvenirs and keepsakes.Interestingly, the second stanza commences with what appears to be a rhetorical question (All that I love? ), which the persona answers with a paradox Why, yes, but for the moment / And for all time, both. The significance of these seemingly self- at odds(p) lines will be discussed towards the end of this essay, but for now this reader will focus on the fact that the persona pauses to contemplate on the relevant issue of the scope of her love, before she proceeds to enumerate her loved ones memorabilia that she has firm to vouchsafe.Love for the female persona therefore is a conscious choice, a cognitive act not only an affective one, a motif that recurs in various degrees in most of her other love poems. In the third stanza, the persona explains the rationale behind her a ction Its utter sublimation A feat, this hearts control Moment to moment To scale all love down To a cupped hands size, The keyword here is sublimation, which in psychology is the deflection of sexual energy or other regressive biological impulse from its immediate goal to one of a high social, moral or aesthetic nature or use.In chemistry, on the other hand, sublimation is the process of transforming a solid substance by heat into a vapor, which on cooling condenses again to solid form without apparent liquefaction. congenital in both definitions is the act of refinement and purification through fire, since to subtilise in a sense is to make something sublime out of something sordid. In the latter a literal fire dissolves through a crucible the dross from the precious metal, while in the former it is furnace of the mind that fire away the superfluous from the crucial experiences.The second most important sentiment in this stanza is the procedure of scaling love down, which T iempo asserts is a feat by itself, an exceptional accomplishment of the female personas sentimental heart which is achieved through utmost discipline and restraint. But aside from mere manageability, why is it necessary to miniaturize love, to whittle it down to the size of a cupped hand? The answer to this pertinent question is given, albeit in a tangential fashion, in the fourth and last stanza And life and love are real/ Things you can run and/ Breathless hand over/ To the merest child. Love as real things or concrete objects rather than as abstract concepts is easier to pass on, since it has become more tangible and thus more comprehensible to most everyone else, including children and ones beloved offspring. It also underscores the importance of bequeathing the legacy of love to the following generation, since as the cliche goes children are the future of the world, which makes the merest child, and not the wisest woman nor the strongest man, the idealistic recipient of such a wonderful gift.The image of the cupped hand also emphasizes the idea that in the act of giving the one offering the bribe is also a beggar of sorts, since the beneficiary can always deflect to accept the heirlooms being proffered. But another important element is introduced in the ultimate stanza, for the persona by some extraordinary leap of the supposition perceives the seashells on the beach as broken pieces/ From Gods own bright teeth, which for a better understanding of Bonsai must be enlarge on, so that readers of Philippine poetry from English can fully valuate the tight structural organization of the poem.Gemino H. Abad in his remarkable essay purpose Our Poetic Terrain Filipino Poetry in English from 1905 to the Presentiiiconnects this image to the paradoxical lines of the second stanza for the moment / And for all time, both. This reader cannot help but agree, since indeed the five objects mentioned by the persona being mementoes of the people she loves are meton yms of memory, shattered but shimmering fragments of chronology, captured important moments immortalized in the heart and mind, if we are to imagine Time itself as a manifestation of God.Of greater consequence, thought, is that this divine see to it completes Tiempos poetic picture about love and remembrance by adding the spiritual detail, for love like the unmentionable Hebrew name of the almighty is also a Tetragrammaton, a four-letter word, which has probably engendered the often-quoted adage that God is Love, and Love is God. Structurally speaking, her most famous poem can thus be diagrammed in this demeanor TREE/SHRUB - bonsai LOVE - sons note, Dads one gaudy tie, etc.GOD seashells MAN/WOMAN merest child On the remaining side of the chart are the huge objects, concepts or people lifesize flora (Tree/Shrub), big abstract words (Love, God) and grownups (Man/Woman). Their miniature analogues, in contrast, are found on the right side of the chart. However, these diminutive parallels, especially the mementoes, go along the spirit of their larger versions, since the process of sublimation reduces things only in terms of size but not in essence.Ultimately, this makes Bonsai the perfect title of the poem, for a bonsai has all the necessary parts that make a tree or a shrub what it is roots, a trunk, branches, leaves and flowers, albeit in smaller portions in the same manner that love even if sublimated by the heart and the mind calm down preserves its sum and substance, its lifeblood in the truest sense of the written word and the word made flesh.