Bonsai Love

Diane Tucker’s Bonsai Love is an eloquent book of poems about the sensual delicacy of love. Carefully pruned, intricate in design, and sensitive to intrusion, these poems create an image of intimacy through reflection and in relation to nature, the universe, music, literature and art. The voice that comes forth is one of self-doubt seeking reassurance: “Who wouldn’t want her whole self rehearsed/from top to bottom, in every key, before being/laid down to rest in a marigold velvet bed?” It is a voice of caring and passion that seeks details (“Your hands have all the right calluses,/rough and smooth in the proper harmony”) as well as larger philosophical answers (“You like the stars best:/once known, they stay the same.”). Bonsai Love is a discovery of love in all levels—a deep investigation of what it means to care and be cared for. In the end, the author does not settle on simple answers: “This heart is heavy to lift but small enough/to pocket and hide.”