The Moment

by Margaret Atwood

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.


The voice that is present in this poem in reflective, and painful. The poet expresses her views of how “many years of hard work and a long voyage,” can excel a person into a position of belonging that they were striving for. The poet concludes the poem by saying how the actual idea of owning all that property is just an illusion, but not real. She writes, “You were a visitor,” which is referring to the fact that nothing is actually a possession, just something that a person whishes they had.