Small towns tell stories of their inhabitants,

those current ones and those

who already have said goodbye to this life.

Indeed, people prefer to be told of those 

who are no longer with us.  

Unlike the big cities, such stories are known for all

and never fall into oblivion.

As if they were plots of soap operas or television series,

always appear followers of this or that character,

who neither know nor suspect they have not died,

continuing to live and giving to the posterity some reason

to unfold uncertain and so ordinary their days.

People don’t forget the one who didn’t listen to parents,

brought his wife from stranger town

and produced three sons and countless betrayals;

also that family whose grandparents were dominant

in society, their sons lost tradition and money,

 grandchildren now live in poverty

and don’t know how to start again;  

that casino and its illusive machines and stripteases,

bad-looking owners and poker tables, boycotted

by the population and set out to look for another place;

the cemetery that needs to be deactivated

and make way for a new and more modern,

what they are putting off, so they continue to rest

and be seen near those they had loved in life.

They realize with sadness the current youth which loses

the meaning and strength of one life well lived,

the smile that was able to open hope and create

their fathers’ generation.

A generation that persecutes daily the happiness 

 in all its fullness we are in the right duty to achieve.

This poem and all others at this blog, authored by Edilson Afonso Ferreira ©