The poet, Boey Kim Chang, a Singapore – born Australian poet, is pained to see the developments all around him, which in the name of modernization, is encroaching into nature and destroying the heritage with a lot of precision.

The planners have not been given any specific identity. They are mentioned in the poem as “They” but their work is very minutely scrutinized to present them as powerful people who can easily fulfill their purpose because they have the financial strength to manipulate all voices against them. But, according to the poet, they do their job with a lot of planning and their work is also logically designed. They are not bothered to save the nature as their only concern is the maximum utilization of space.

The accuracy of the planners has been sarcastically compared to a dentist who can identify the rotten tooth easily, extracts it and fills up the gap with the shining tooth. The person concerned is happy to get a new set of teeth and comfortably forgets the past. The same process is applied by the planners to rewrite history by destroying the past, and replacing it with the glamorous new construction.

The people are so mesmerized by the newfound charm that they are in a state of trance to have the amnesia of forgetting what has been replaced. The replaced beauty is tactfully presented by the planners to have an anaesthetic effect on them. Like the archaeologists, the planners also drill but their purpose is not to search glory or history, but destroy the soul of the past.

The poet refuses to resort to any creativity such a situation since he does not consciously want to stain the present by messing up with the blue print of the so – called advancement. He may be suggesting that the change is in the hands of the people and they need to act the way they want to see the future.

The poem has no particular rhyme-scheme as the poet’s thoughts flow freely to express his emotions on the depletion of nature and burying of the past. The short lines in the beginning, “They Plan”. “They build”, without directly referring who “They” are, the poet sets the planners apart from the readers. But the poem is full of sarcasm against the planners to express the poet’s displeasure. He has used a number of figures of speech to create an awareness among the readers.

The poem brings out a strong nostalgic emotion of the poet and his thoughts are moving around to search for the existence of natural beauty or glorious past. That is why, the lines of the poem are irregularly arranged – some lines run into the next, not like the precision of the planners. These irregularities have got an appeal to the readers because sometimes imperfections also appear perfect.