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Speaking of immigration and nationalism...

-The Moment-

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-

AtheistReader 7 Nov 2
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Beautifully said

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Thank you for that. I had not seen it before. The first (real) Americans understood and respected this. I'm happy you shared it.

Atwood's poems are pretty awesome.

Yes. There is a sense of unmitigated arrogance in our belief that we can "own" something that is far more ancient and far more permanent than us.

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