sustained and deliberate action, "much time," to kill a tree which will continually resist destruction; the "bleeding bark will heal" and, even after having experienced one attack, a tree can "expand again." Trees are resilient, and, moreover, trees are not simply things that grow upon the earth, but part of it: a tree spends its life "slowly consuming the earth" and "feeding upon its crust." Trees are an inherent part of the world around us, and in destroying them, humans are making a conscious choice, a determination that "the root is to be pulled out."

The poet identifies some of the many ways in which humans have destroyed trees: "scorching," "choking," "hardening," "twisting," "withering." The use of so many active verbs here underlines the poet's point, that deforestation and the destruction of the environment are a result not of human inaction, but of decisive and deliberate human attacks upon that environment. And yet, to think of the environment, and our trees, as something distinct from us is a fallacy, as the trees are part of "the anchoring earth" in which they grow, and they have been here "for years." To destroy a living thing so resilient as a tree is to wreak deliberate and forceful damage.

In my opinion, this poem is an indictment of mankind's failure to care for the earth.  Sarcasm is obviously involved, as the poet enumerates the various ways we attempt to kill a tree, only to have it survive.

The act of killing a tree is more than a simple act of taking a knife to it.  Why? Because the tree has deep roots, which have absorbed water; its leaves have absorbed sunlight; leaves sprout out from the bark, which looks as if nothing could possibly grow from it.

To actually kill the tree, something much more fierce and intentional must be done.  It is necessary to actually pull it up by its roots, separating it from all that has made it grow and become its strong self in the first place.  Even so, it will take much time for the uprooted tree to actually decompose and turn to nothingness. It will even make attempts to regrow.

Do you think it is possible that the poet is speaking ONLY about trees, or could he also be speaking about other entities which are deeply rooted?  People, perhaps?

This should have gotten you started.  Now explore for yourself.

Gieve Patel (born 1940) is an Indian poet and artist who was born in Mumbai, where he settled after obtaining his M.D. and where he works as a general practitioner. Patel is a member of the "Green Movement," a group of writers concerned with protecting the environment. In an interview, Patal described the genesis of the poem:

“I was twenty and studying medicine at Grant Medical College (Nagpada). One morning when I went to the college compound, I saw a beautiful tree uprooted by the storm. I sat down and wrote the poem.”

The first theme of the poem is the unity of the tree with the earth. The tree is portrayed as gradually emerging from the earth and drawing strength from it. When damaged, the tree can retreat back to its roots, still embedded in the earth, and grow again. It is only if the tree is ripped out of the earth entirely and its roots exposed that it will die.

This leads to a more metaphorical symbolic theme, namely that all life is connected to the earth and that when living beings are uprooted from the natural world and environment, they wither and die. Thus this poem emphasizes ecological themes connecting Earth and plants. Humans can destroy trees with sufficient effort, but the narrator describes this effort in ways that make it sound violent and almost murderous.

The theme of a poem is the underlying message of the poem, or the poem's big idea. Two possible themes come to mind for Gieve Patel's "On Killing a Tree."

One possible theme has to do with the resilience of nature. The tree in this poem can sustain a lot of injury and hardship and still survive; if the reader of the poem views the tree as a symbol representing nature as a whole, humanity, or even an individual person, then a discussion of this theme of resilience can have a positive tone. After all, resilience is an admirable quality, and one that deserves celebration.

Another possible theme has to do with the vulnerability of nature, especially as the title of the poem is "On Killing a Tree." The tree in this poem is strong and resilient, but only to a point. Like any living thing, the tree has vulnerabilities, and if these vulnerabilities are exposed by violence, the tree will die. If the tree symbolizes anything else that is alive, then a discussion of this theme must contain a warning to the reader to protect vulnerabilities, as exposure can lead to death.

I don't know that there is a single, correct interpretation for a poem like this. As such, I believe it will be most helpful to look at the idea or principle the poem presents, and then see if it is relevant in other contexts apart from trees.

The poem has four stanzas (plus a couple introductory lines) and, coincidentally, also has four elements to it, each expressed by its own stanza. They are: 1) the tree itself, 2) the ineffective attempt at killing the tree, 3) the roots, and 4) the successful killing of the tree.

Working with these, the poem can briefly be summarized as: trees are quite resilient; even chopping them down isn't enough to kill them; as long as the roots survive, so will the tree; trees can only be truly killed by ripping the roots from the ground—the source of sustenance and safety.

With the poem simply summarized, it becomes pretty clear that the idea behind the poem is the durability and capability of living things to recover from even grievous wounds, so long as they have a safe, nurturing "root" intact.

There are a lot of directions you can take this. To me, the ones that jump out are things that could be described as "living" yet aren't organisms in the biological sense—namely, communities or the human spirit.

Communities, much like trees, slowly grow and expand over the years from just a small starting point (stanza 1). Further, removing some members of the community, though often devastating, is not so much that it cannot be recovered from, given time (stanza 2). Because communities are typically founded not by coincidence, but by a group coming to together with shared needs or beliefs, there is usually a root cause (see what I did there?) that holds the community together more than any single member (stanza 3). If one destroys these roots of the community, even if all the members remain, the community will eventually wither and fall apart (stanza 4).

The other interpretation I mentioned, the human spirit, can also be understood with regard to the idea Patel presents in the poem. People have suffered tremendously and needlessly throughout history—I don't imagine I need to give examples—but there are just as many stories of people in those situations that somehow endure and recover (not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well). Many have scars, just as a once chopped down tree would, but they have recovered nonetheless (stanza 2). To truly break someone, you must destroy their hope, crush their spirit. And that is not as easily done, especially if they have support from others. How much more difficult is it to endure when on your own? This system of nurturing and support is represented by the earth, and our connection to it is the roots (stanza 3). The world can be a terrible place, and without a connection to keep us sturdy and grounded, our spirit is exposed to the elements. And once we are separated, once we are alone:

Then the matter
Of scorching and choking
In sun and air,
Browning, hardening,
Twisting, withering,
And then it is done.

In the same way a tree is dependent on its roots to survive, so too is the human spirit dependent on others for support. The world is too taxing and painful to survive without it (stanza 4).

That turned rather grim. Whoops.

These are, of course, not the only possible answers. But hopefully they're enough to work from and to get an idea of what the author could have been talking about.