A visual representation of "Survival" by Gillian Bickley
AU Hoi Ching
Good Hope School
The poem ‘Survival’ depicts a moving story of a tree surviving on the street of a bustling city despite the many destructions and pollution it has to face. My entry is to express my sympathy for nature. By accentuating the size and presenting the tree in an unrealistic manner, I aim to emphasise how nature struggles to thrive amidst urban development and air pollution. The colour of the tree bright and vibrant contrasts with the colour of the background grey and faded, highlighting the significance of nature. Despite living in an unnatural environment, the tree still manages to find its way to grow its roots through the bricks and paths humans have built, offering people, who believe that there will be a bright future, through the hole in the tree trunk, a glimpse of a world in which life is abundant and flourishing against all odds.
Survival
Thank you trees for being there, for staying
when many of the friends you knew─
birds and butterflies ─ have gone;
for flourishing, even; growing old
where concrete buildings
are constantly knocked down.
How brave you are to survive
in a place where the air is foul
and the noise unnatural;
you who should normally expect
to stabilise your roots
in humid humming forests,
alive with the smells of
animal and vegetable life
(not the smells of mineral death, as here).
It is good to look down a street
and, amazed, to see you there,
solid and green and cool, uncompromised
by the advertising posters on your boles;
a promise
that, since there was a past,
there may quite possibly be a future too.
1982
Gillian Bickley
“Survival” was first published in For the Record and other Poems of Hong Kong by Gillian Bickley, p.25. Copyrights© 2003 by Proverse Hong Kong. Reprinted by permission of Proverse Hong Kong. Please approach Proverse Hong Kong by email (proverse@netvigator.com) for permission to use this poem or others in the collection.