Gieve Patel’s poem ‘On Killing a Tree’ has a strong message. The poem wants to say that a tree is a very powerful organism. It is a living organism. It has life and feelings. The growth of a tree is no less than the growth of a human being, and the cutting down of a tree is nothing but killing a tree. The act of killing a tree is a blood-ridden business. This is an act of extreme brutality. A tree cannot be killed so easily. Man has to make a lot of violent effort to kill it. The tree tries to overcome all the bruises and wounds, all the violent attacks of man. The man continues the murderous actions until it is killed. When the tree is finally killed, a man sees it as a victory. But the irony is that humans are destroying nature that nourishes human civilization.