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It takes much time to kill a tree, Not a simple jab of the knife Will do it. It has grown Slowly consuming the earth, Rising out of it, feeding Upon its crust, absorbing Years of sunlight, air, water, And out of its leprous hide Sprouting leaves.
So hack and chop But this alone won't do it. Not so much pain will do it. The bleeding bark will heal And from close to the ground Will rise curled green twigs, Absorbing shocks of pain, Twisting, adapting, hardening— Leaping out of the Earth.
Then the matter Of scorching and choking In sun and air, Browning, hardening, Twisting, withering, And then it is done.
Content Analysis
A disturbing, clinically precise instruction manual for killing a tree. The poem traces the tree's extraordinary resilience — healing after hacking, sprouting new growth after injury — until it reveals the only true method: uproot and expose the root to sun and air. Allegorically, it meditates on the destruction of deeply rooted life and culture.
- Resilience and survival against sustained violence
- The nature of destruction and its requirements
- Ecological and environmental awareness
- Colonial and political allegory — the destruction of rooted peoples
- The relationship between suffering, adaptation, and strength
Extended metaphor: "The tree as a metaphor for any deeply rooted life, culture, or human spirit that cannot be destroyed by surface attacks."
Procedural tone: "The poem's clinical, step-by-step instruction creates cold horror — the reader becomes implicated as a participant in the killing."
Anaphora of present participles: "Absorbing, twisting, hardening, withering — the chain of present participles gives the poem relentless, unstoppable forward motion."
About the Author
Gieve Patel (born 1940) is an Indian poet, playwright, and painter who has practised as a physician in Mumbai for most of his adult life. He belongs to the same postcolonial Indian English literary tradition as Nissim Ezekiel, and his medical background informs his clinical, precise poetic observations.
Writing Style: Patel's language is unadorned and precise — closer to a medical or biological description than romantic verse. This clinical precision is entirely deliberate: the poem's violence is made more unsettling by being described so coolly and methodically.
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According to the poem, what must be done to truly and permanently kill a tree?