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The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
Margaret Atwood
Read poems about / on: house, work, time, tree
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Click here to write your comments about this poem (The Moment by Margaret Atwood)
Brian Dorn (7/28/2006 1:53:00 PM)
Man must learn to simply appreciate nature for what it is, we can not own it or control it... rather, it controls us. A brilliant perspective. |
Dr. Afaq Qureshi (4/19/2005 1:58:00 AM)
is it about the proprietary rights? the transition from 'house' to 'universe' and the defining period of time where the trees and air melt, and change to make the 'owner' realize about the inherent quality of change and stark reality of something more tangible, more permanent, the change itself. Can it be read in the perspective of human drama instead of mere imagery or wordplay. Maybe the person who wrote the lines didn't think of time but of timelessness. What then.. |
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