MUNICIPAL GUM
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 seem to me
Like the poor cart-horse
Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,
Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,
Whose hung head and listless mien express
Its hopelessness.
Minicipal gum, it is dolorous
To see you thus
Set in your black grass of bitumen;
O fellow citizen,
What have then done to us?
Kath Walker,
Born 1920, is an Aboriginal poet and vigorous spokeswoman for her people.