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.

I would sweep this woman’s floors, clean the bottoms of her shoes, whatever. From her poem, “Sad Child”, to her creepy MaddAddam fiction series, and everything in between, just hand it over — I’ll read it all aloud from the pedestal that is my tallest bookshelf and I will give thanks for every single piece,  every single day.

My contribution to APAD — Day 6 is I Thought I Was In A Consignment Shop. I wrote the first draft back in 2012 after … you guessed it.

Well, it’s April and it’s raining again. Today’s schedule proclaims that I have four entire hours set aside for writing. Here’s to hoping that actually happens!