I was going on my walk
random and with no purpose
and I walked down the path
when this gumtree said:
“Hey, look at me! Look at me!
Don’t you dare ignore me-
Just look at me!
Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
I laughed and I said:
“Yes…yes…I’m sorry I ignored you…
Now that I look at you, yes, you’re certainly pretty –
and I’ll do better than look at you;
I’ll take a picture of you
and I’ll write words to go along”
And the gumtree stood straight
and gave a wide smile;
and then the cheeky gumtree looked
at the image in my camera and it said:
“You’re not a good photographer;
I hope you turn out better as a poet…”

Municipal Gum was written by Oodjeroo Noonecaal. Municipal Gum is about the changes in society and the tendency of people to want to control everything. Oodjeroo uses various techniques to convey this idea.

At the beginning of the poem Oodjeroo is addressing the tree. This immediately creates empathy for both the tree and her people. By the last line she has emphasised this with the pronoun “us” to show that they suffer a similar fate.

This poem expresses how life in Australia has changes especially for Aboriginal people. In the first half of the poem Oodjeroo is talking about how life was for her and others. It explores the changes in society and the displacement of the Aboriginal people from their land.

“Whose head hung…Its hopelessness”, the author uses this as further re-iteration of the immorality of the situation and by the use of analogy comparing the tree to her people to further emphasise the shame and lack control of that the Europeans have inflicted upon her and the environment.

Oodjeroo uses extended metaphor technique in the very first line of the poem ‘Hard bitumen around your feet’. This means that the gumtree has been placed in the city scape where it is suppressed and not allowed to spread out and be unique in its own way. This is clear and immanently direct link to the pain and suffering endured by the Aborigines post European settlement.

Oodjeroo uses vivid language to present these ideas. For example the use of the word castrated is very effective. The connotation of the word is very demeaning. With castration often comes a sense of a loss of pride and power. The word castration is symbolic of how Oodjeroo feels the European have treated Aboriginal people and the environment. Castration also refers to the fact that what is done is done. Nothing can undo what they did and the damaged they have caused.

Other symbolism includes the title “Municipal Gum”, municipal meaning community, implies that the gumtree belongs to the community. One of the vast differences between European and Aboriginal law is that Aboriginal people did not believe in the ownership of land or of animals and plants. Municipal Gum is a reference to the Europeans assumptions that everything is theirs to own and control.

The rhetorical question, “O fellow citizen, What have they done to us?” is the conclusion of the implications that have been made throughout the poem. Oodjeroo, is advocating for her people and all things wronged by the controlling behaviour of the Europeans. Rhetorical questions are used to provoke thought and to stimulate a pre-determined response. “What have they done to us?” They have “castrated, broken… strapped and buckled” and ultimately changed things to a point that they cannot be fixed.

In conclusion, Municipal Gum is a poem about the constrictions and change that the European invaders forced upon the Aboriginal community and the environment she believes that the Europeans have deemed themselves ever powerful and practice their power in a manner that is immoral.

Her arms drape over
Leaving her shadow behind
Unseen
Branches brush my thighs
Dance along my bare skin
While early morning
Incandescent sunrays
Rest on my cheeks
Standing at her roots
She brings me to my knees
Grounded heavy
In gratitude
as she shows us
So gracefully
Quietly
Mindfully
How to breathe

It came at night,
a howling wind,
when gentle Spring
had been expected.
Gumtree pond
Homes destroyed,
bodies everywhere,
devastated.

In the silent
aftermath
there , the sound
of a baby
crying.

Baby Elvis
had survived
when all around
folks keened
for those
who died.

A fish out of water slaps
for the wet familiar
as first rainbow gasps
for all colour beneath
evergreen eucalypts

and boy becomes hunter.

White flesh in the pan
rainbow now grey;
a dull eye pops in the fat.
The first meal of camp

"We're all about survival"
says the voice from the beard.

In that first howling night the tent holds no echo:
a cocoon of down
muffles the want of a scream
for mother’s goodnight.

Terrain is now is real and not just a geography lesson.

When morning arrives
relief and sunlight slap awake
the face of survival.
Mosquitoes frustrate the zippered gauze, march-flies marshal to march.

Wisps of gum-smoke, the smell of the wild, steam from hot-streams on tussocks, beans in the pannikin, dust in the billy, leaves of tea and gumtree chase the boil.

Longer walk today; boots even more ready for rubbing off skin.

Fourteen miles to the next creek and next water.
Ache in the pack
No rest only winter.
The dingo pads on.
Wild boar root en mass. Wombats rummage the banks.
Wallabies thump up the ridge-line.

"We’ll circle our tent-line and raise tonight’s fire after dark."
Says the beard and walks on.

The hunter
Seeks now no quarry
Dreams the snap of a soft sheet
and mouths words
for the water of home.

a fast skirling wind
raced through the gumtree limbs
bending their branches

Happy Birthday to you Toni, may you be supping many cold pina colladas in old Mehico with my boy Gumtree Gebbie.

Only know it’s your birthday because it also happens to be our 33rd wedding anniversary. 33 years with the old Sheila….Gawd!

She phoned me a few minutes ago to remind me…I’m sitting at my early morning desk writing out purchase orders, she is sitting up in bed at Taranaki, with a hot cup of tea issuing orders.

Something about the order of things there??

Off home this afternoon with a car full of ***** washing, fresh strawberrys and bunches of asparagus picked this morning. I’ve got instructions to mow the ****** lawns, **** eat the verges and trim the ****** hedges, pick up her DVD and newest novel from the New Plymouth library as I pass through…and get here by 6pm or you’ll be late for tea….again!!!

Paradise this marriage business, effing paradise!

On Sunday we plan to celebrate the New Year by having dinner at the Sugar Juice café in Opunake…which will be an event!....then we are off to the “Everyman's Cinema” in Opunake which is run by a farmers wife who, incidentally, wears loud print, tent like dresses, is about 4 axe handles wide and speaks with a distinctly unpleasant nasal twang. The “Everyman's Cinema” is famous for its seating arrangement…. 120 ancient couches spread before the silver screen from which patrons are encouraged to drink their own ***** and crunch away on packets of noisy potato chips….Should be fun…”no bookings necessary” she nasally informed. ….Movie on offer “****** on the Orient Express”

Mum and I should be home, tucked up in bed and snoring… well before midnite!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Luv Dad

  PS: HAPPY NEW YEAR to both you fellas and your lovely ladies, may your festivities match ours and may good things happen to us all in the new year ahead…..We deserve it !

Cheers dears Dad

Happy Birthday to you Toni, may you be supping many cold pina colladas in old Mehico with my boy Gumtree Gebbie.
Only know it’s your birthday because it also happens to be our 33rd wedding anniversary. 33 years with the old Sheila….Gawd!
She phoned me a few minutes ago to remind me…I’m sitting at my early morning desk writing out purchase orders, she is sitting up in bed at Taranaki, with a hot cup of tea issuing orders.
Something about the order of things there??

Off home this afternoon with a car full of ***** washing, fresh strawberrys and bunches of asparagus picked this morning. I’ve got instructions to mow the ****** lawns, **** eat the verges and trim the ****** hedges, pick up her DVD and newest novel from the New Plymouth library as I pass through…and get here by 6pm or you’ll be late for tea….again!!!
Paradise this marriage business, ******* paradise!

On Sunday we plan to celebrate the New Year by having dinner at the Sugar Plum café in Opunake…which will be an event!....then we are off to the “Peoples Cinema” in Opunake which is run by a farmers wife who, incidentally, wears loud print, tent like dresses, is about 4 axe handles wide and speaks with a distinctly unpleasant nasal twang. The “Peoples Cinema” is famous for its seating arrangement…. 120 ancient couches spread before the silver screen from which patrons are encouraged to drink their own ***** and crunch away on packets of noisy potato chips….Should be fun…”no bookings necessary” she nasally informed. ….Movie on offer “****** on the Orient Express”
Mum and I should be home, tucked up in bed and snoring… well before midnite!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Luv Dad

PS: HAPPY NEW YEAR to both you fellas and your lovely ladies, may your festivities match ours and may good things happen to us all in the new year ahead…..We deserve it !
Cheers dears  Dad

Decorated, renovated.
Look at the beauty that God created.
But the truth is that it's so underrated.
Constantly slated.
Feeling sedated as I wander outside, looking at the moon and the stars at night.

Flora and fauna can co-exist, but that notion is frequently dismissed.
People are in their heads instead of taking in their surroundings.
Clay muddies the water and leaves us all floundering.

Dividing opinions multiply around the world but to me it doesn't add up.
How much less stress it is to realise we're blessed.
Unfortunately, I must acquiesce to the fact that we're lost in the wilderness.
Corrupt governments and run down countries.
Bootleg products being sold on Gumtree.

What a shame.
But the game is the game.
We need codebreakers to break the code to the safe.
We need warriors who are unbelievably brave.
Courageous enough to realise they may end up in a grave for opposing the status quo and refusing to be a slave to the system.

Hold up, wait, listen.
Do you hear the door?
It's the ambulance and the Feds.
They've clocked that their patients don't wanna take their meds.
And the inmates are digging escape routes under their beds.

They've come to drag their captives back to their dens to continue making profit out of them in the tens of millions and billions.
They're aiming for the trillions.
These money hungry crooks don't even care about civilians.

It's sounds like doom and gloom.
But it's not all out of our control.
We can appreciate the bloom if we look deep with in our soul.
Take some time to look inside and you will find your perfect role to play in this game called life.

We can all do it if we strive.
It gives us a reason to be alive.
A road you can travel down with your wife.
Nuggets of wisdom you can feed to your children, so they don't wander like pilgrims, but work towards a fairytale life like Rumpelstiltskin.