We founded churches, schools, hospitals,
we created priests, teachers and physicians;
some of us we acclaimed kings and judges,
some others, beggars and prisoners.
We care for our children instilling in them
those dreams we were not able to fulfill.
We have changed our course many times,
both on the road and in our minds,
so little different from those primitive hordes,
turning to the wind like a ship of old sailors.
We have never had even that natural gift of birds,
who know from birth their journeys and returns
in each season of their lives.
Saints and sinners, side by side, we write our history,
which, some day, will be read, and they will know that,
if we have never lacked wit and sapience,
it has never lacked a plenty of love.
A love full of disappointments, but blended with the joy
of alone colonizing a planet given to unknown ancestors,
which, despite life’s scars, has been always handed
to welcome hopeful new generations.
Published in Indiana Voice Journal, March-April 2018 issue.
edilsonmeloferreira 