“To make a prairie” consists of a single stanza with five lines. The first line of the poem is the longest, with each line after being shorter and generally diminishing. The first three lines grow shorter and shorter. The fourth line gets a little longer than the second and third, before shrinking again in the fifth line. The decrease in line length correlates to the diminishing number of requirements the speaker relates are needed to create a prairie. The first three lines of the poem rhyme with one another; the first two lines both end with “bee,” while the third ends in “revery.” This rhyme on the final stress constitutes masculine rhyme, and the final stress makes the ending much more impactful and poignant. The final two lines of the poem also end with masculine rhyme: “do” (Line 4) and “few” (Line 5). The shift between the first set of rhyme and the second correlates to the shift in focus from the bee/clover to revery.

The poem follows iambic meter for the most part in each line. Iambs consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.