On Killing a Tree by Gieve Patel : Poem Summary

On Killing a Tree: Summary

- JS. N

(04/12/2022)

Gieve Patel the author of the poem On Killing a Tree is a Poet, Playwright and Painter by passion and a Doctor by profession. He had published three books of poetry as Poems (1966), How do you withstand, Body (1976) and Mirrored Mirroring (1991). The poem ‘On Killing a Tree’ is one of the poems from his poetry collection named ‘Poems’. This collection was launched by Nissim Ezekiel. Being a part of “Green Movement”, he entitled himself to protect the environment. As a result of this he had exhibited his concern through poetry. Most of Patel’s poems centre on exposing man’s cruelty towards nature and his concern towards it. ‘On Killing a Tree,’ too, is one such poem.

The poem is set on a visual plane. The descriptions are vivid, and the mood is sad, expressing the pain felt by the trees, as imagined by Patel. The poem tries to convey the fact that trees have life and cutting down a tree is an actual process of killing it. The poet makes sure that by the process of jabbing, cutting and chopping a tree can’t become an end to it. 

“But this alone won’t do it.

Not so much pain will do it.”

After years of growth by consuming the nutrients found in the earth, along with years of sunlight, water, and air, the tree had attained its full form. He states that, the ‘bleeding bark,’ the part where it has been chopped off, will get healed. The new green twigs will grow again; boughs chopped off will be replaced by new boughs and grow back into their former size. With this he wants mankind to understand how we’re hurting a tree. 

Following this, the poet also explains the ways in which a tree can be killed. He says: 

“No,

The root is to be pulled out –”

The root, which is the source of a tree’s life, must be pulled out of its ‘earth cave’ in order to kill the tree. The point deep inside the earth, where the root is attached is the life source of a tree, when it is exposed, the tree becomes vulnerable. 

The poet describes the process of a tree’s death and the amount of time it will take to completely kill a tree:

“In sun and air,

Browning, hardening,

Twisting, withering,

And then it is done.”

The exposed life source, which when left open to the sun and air, will be scorched due to the heat and it slowly turns brown, with all its softness fading out, leaving a hard, lifeless remainder behind. With time, it will start to wither, become dry and bent out of shape, leaving a corpse where a tree used to be. 

The imagery presented in the poem had expressed the pain injected to a tree and what are all the difficulties it has to undergo in the name of deforestation. The poet wants his reader to understand the pain of the tree rather than thinking of taking its life away.