what has the poet compared with leprous hide from poem on killing a tree
Answers
The poet had compared the discolored and twisted skin of a person grieving from leprosy with leprous hide from the poem “On Killing a Tree.”
In the poem “On killing a tree” the poet Gieve Patel uses many figures of speech like personification and metaphor. The poet personifies the act of killing a tree to that of killing a human. Wounding the tree with the knife is personified as the wounds of humans. He tries to show the dilemma of taking harsh decisions in life. Here he uses metaphor to build a comparison between a tree's grieve and that of the humans.
The poet has compared the skin of a leprosy patient with that of the bark of a tree.
Therefore, in the poem, killing a tree, the hide means skin and the leprous is referred to as the leopard like skin or the discoloured skin which is of the tree bark.
Therefore, the poet is making comparison of the tree bark and that of the patient of the leprosy or the leopard is somewhat similar.