Consisting of 24 lines arranged in a single stanza, the poem is unrhymed and unmetered: It follows no rhyme scheme nor formal metrical arrangement. The 24 lines of the poem are short; none of them contain more than six words. Often the lines appear jagged and broken, as if imitating the whittling of the bonsai tree. The shortness of the lines provides urgency and impact to the poem, telling the reader the poet’s message needs to be urgently delivered. The poem can be described as an allegory, since its elements all have deeper, subtextual meaning. It may also be classified as a narrative poem since it tells the story of the bonsai tree. The poem’s diction is straightforward without being casual, and its accessible vocabulary borrows terms from gardening.

Though the poem does not use many aural literary devices such as alliteration and assonance, its short lines give it a singsong feeling and internal rhythm: “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 (Lines 9-16).