We pretend having our life,
even world’s life, always under control,
from past generations to present days.
Sometimes we feel close to that certainty,
and it is good that this should happen,
giving us some encouragement on the route.
We work with the mind and the heart,
science and desire, on outlining the future,
which we anticipate promising and happy.
Skirting around life’s corners, every so often,
we are faced with frightening facts,
perhaps echoes of ancient Greek tragedies,
poor of hope in the human renaissance.
Wars, revolutions, tyrannies and persecutions,
born on the drumming of soulless men,
have delayed landing in the promised land,
where milk and honey spur and light reigns,
preventing all evil once sown.
But we are already listening
the beating of the wings of the dove’s return,
like those of Noah, bringing in its beak
the green branch of the olive tree.
Edilson Afonso Ferreira, 75 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Largely published in international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67, after retirement as a bank employee. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize 2017, his first Poetry Collection, Lonely Sailor, One Hundred Poems, was launched in London, November 2018. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.
