A Work of Artifice

artifice: crafty or subtle deception
the title comes from the tree having its potential greatly reduced but the tree does not know this. The tree could become so much more but the trees caretaker "carefully" made sure the tree would never become what it has the possibility to become. The poet is making a statement on how this happens to women and this can bee seen in the last line where the poem stops talking about the tree and starts to transition into women by saying the line "the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers." women from a young age have their ability "carefully" so that the women do not even realize it because it is so subtle. it is said that women are lucky to be able to stay home and watch children and have the money brought home by their husbands. the author says this in the line 
"It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in."
The women could go out and do so much with their lives they could be scientists or engineers or doctors but it is their "nature to be domestic and weak."  The women should feel blessed that their lives have been made simple by everyone else after all they "have a pot to grow in." Never to grow beyond that pot they know just how far they can go before they are stopped and then they just stay there never reaching their full potential. But the women are always safe they always have their pot. 
  I love the line "the hands you love to touch." Because the Poet did not write this poem for women she wrote it so the men could see. She did not want women to read it she wanted men to read it and see that they were capping the potential of women everywhere. She wrote it so the men could relate to this problem it is not just women everywhere to them it is not an unrealistic thing the problem has a face. the problem takes the face of their wives or mothers the women in their world's that mean the most to them. They can ignore a faceless problem but they cannot ignore their loved ones.  My favorite line is "the hair in curlers" because who would think that curled hair is a sign of being women being held down. But it is true women curl their hair so it looks good so they can find a guy. This shows that it is not just the men who are holding women down it is also women. Mothers teach girls how to curl their hair so they can go into the world and find a husband who loves their curled hair and obtain their cozy little pots to grow in.