Gumtree in the city street,
Hard bitumen around your feet,
Rather you should be
In the cool world of leafy forest halls
And wild bird calls
Here you seems to me
Like that poor cart-horse
Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,
Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,
Whose hung head and listless mien express
Its hopelessness.
Municipal gum, it is dolorous
To see you thus
Set in your black grass of bitumen–
O fellow citizen,
What have they done to us?
ANALYSIS-
This aboriginal poem is about the hopelessness and need
for help. This poem is a metaphorically based poem which uses a horse in the place of the aboriginals. The poet
reflects on the horse as it were one of her own. At the
end of the poem,
He/she says, what have they done to us, This then puts the a question on us to make us think about it. It gives you
the hint that she indeed was talking about aboriginals. This is a
smart way of getting a message across to the reader, using this will get the reader working it out, and… makes the reader think that the poet id very smart and wise.
The poem’s mood is gloomy , it is almost an ask for help. She gives the feeling that the world is cruel and unfair for there bad things happening like this, The poet is not wrong. She uses the technique of ,using metaphors and using parody, giving the idea in two different ways
