Gul Mohar English Class 7 Poem - Heartwood

Gul Mohar Edition 9 Orient Blackswan

Gul Mohar English Poem - Heartwood

Writer of the poem - Robert Macfarlane
Summary
The poem Heartwood is written by Robert Macfarlane, a contemporary British poet and a non-fiction writer. His writing generally deals with the beauty and importance of nature and emphasizes on the need for saving and cherishing trees.

The personified tree in the poem speaks to a woodcutter, expressing its anguish for cutting it to the core, leaving it wounded and damaged. The speaker in distress asks the cutter to put his ear on the bark and listen to the soft sound of the sap flowing inside the tree to understand its traumatic feelings and further requests him to listen to its heartbeat and the trembling of leaves to reveal its fear and anxiety. The speaker enquires the woodcutter whether he would turn the living tree into timber to reduce into heaps of logs for building and kindling. The tree (speaker) wanted the cutter to realize its destruction.
The tree describes its beneficial aspects and declares its prominence as a maker of life and projects cutter as cruel destroyer. It proclaims itself as giver of life – as it attracts rainfall, absorbs rain to grow branches and leaves that provide shade from the sun and breaks the rocks by spreading its roots. It regards itself as timekeeper as the old tree witness all the changes over a long period of time and thus keeps a record of the time that has passed. It reminds the cutter it is because of the trees that we humans breathe and survive on the planet. It asserts itself as deep thinker as it envisages ecological balance and enables to perceive about our dependence on nature for our survival. The speaker brings out the contrast between its growth and death at the hands of the cutter and says that her world takes ages to grow but could be destroyed within seconds with modern tools thus picturising the vandalism involved. The speaker wants to know if he has the heart to cut it after hearing its plea. It wonders how they could have sent him to cut it down knowing that they are destroying trees that support living.

We realize that to understand the concern and fears of the tree the woodcutter needs patience, kindness and futuristic mind to foresee the consequences and realize the importance of trees.

In the poem the poet stresses on the protection of environment by personifying tree and giving universal appeal to everyone to think before cutting down trees and to be more sensitive to these big, strong and wonderful pillars of nature that support us and help in sustenance of life.