Tuesday, March 10, 2009

share a poem

Mahogany Browne put me onto Margaret. Shes pretty fresh.


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.

4 comments:

  1. Whoa...like ten Haikus in one and -ish. I dig this. I like the start. And how it reached that ladder of this piece done flipped da script on ya. Almost kinda reminds me of your style Aja. Nonetheless,worth the read. ;)

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  2. I love margaret atwood, and this poem is simply evidence to boot!Actually, i'm tryin' to memorize poems these days... and hers was one of the 1st, Variations on the word sleep( the last stanza is amazing!:

    I would like to watch you sleeping,
    which may not happen.
    I would like to watch you,
    sleeping. I would like to sleep
    with you, to enter
    your sleep as its smooth dark wave
    slides over my head

    and walk with you through that lucent
    wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
    with its watery sun & three moons
    towards the cave where you must descend,
    towards your worst fear

    I would like to give you the silver
    branch, the small white flower, the one
    word that will protect you
    from the grief at the center
    of your dream, from the grief
    at the center I would like to follow
    you up the long stairway
    again & become
    the boat that would row you back
    carefully, a flame
    in two cupped hands
    to where your body lies
    beside me, and as you enter
    it as easily as breathing in

    I would like to be the air
    that inhabits you for a moment
    only. I would like to be that unnoticed
    & that necessary.

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  3. ahhh, yes. that is a lovely one. thanks mozart

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