By suddenly noticing the largeness of the horizons
and all beauty they unceasingly frame our world.
By tender and dreamlike resting tonight,
always seeing her face before asleep.
By enjoying full air all the day long,
missing it when she approaches me.
Surely, I must be in love.
But with whom, I have no doubt that
nor to the walls should I reveal.
Published in Red Wolf Journal, January 06, 2016.
http://www.redwolfjournal.wordpress.com
Published in The Basil O’Flaherty, spring 2019 issue.
Outdoors, on sunny days
and blue a sky,
I ride the wind to see all the beauties that are spread
by all this earth.
Indoors, by night and before sleep,
I pray and kiss these walls that gently have sheltered
the rest and dreams of a man born in old a caste,
now in oblivion; they who live only by the sake of love,
having learned anything else,
nothing more.
Published in Red Wolf Journal, January 07, 2016.
When I saw you and faced your beauty,
you did not know that I was ignorant of love.
Nor did I.
But you dared with the adventure of youth
and, fearful, surprised, seduced, I was loved.
Love came, all of a sudden, firm and bold.
Despite not expected, he lodged as beloved son
who, long absent, returns to the paternal home.
You stared at me and your lips and eyes said words
I had never known and never listened to: I love you.
By these words, like a blessing, you joined us forever.
I remember that I felt as if I was caught in a rain,
one of those admirable summer rains,
that shakes the winds and frightens with thunderbolts
but cleans skies, shines hearts, refreshes the soul.
With love you blew slumbering coals
that I had never supposed would exist.
The flame lit and rises, higher and higher;
maybe it reaches even our hidden heaven.
Take care that flame just warms it, do not destroy,
nor reveals to suspicious and envious human eyes.
(Published in Red Wolf Journal, January 16, 2016)
Once happiness touched me and I am sure
anyone never will take it from me.
Its touch has branded me with a living fire,
impregnating me with so stellar a light
only very few of us have been afforded.
I am sure that for life and yet beyond its borders
we will remain cherished by the joy and beauty,
for ours were some days of pure hearted love.
Published in Red Wolf Journal, January 20, 2016.
Somewhere, sometime, in the old East Lands,
in a spot relieved for four rivers, shadowed
by luxurious a garden, at royal a manor house,
by one saint sixth labor day, we awaken to life.
Made on the Creator’s likeness, by many years
we enjoyed His care and His love.
Once, on uncovering life secrets, like
good and evil, our ancestors were banished
having our Lord lock the Paradise Gate.
Since then, the hard and harsh of our toiling,
no one really knows, but You, our Creator.
How much longer will our penalty last?
When and where should we meet again?
Although heavy sternness demonstrated,
be aware many of us still venerate You,
and, some, still love.
We hope to see once more inhabited
that manor house where all has begun,
appeasing Your heart and retreating
some cherubims at the Paradise Gate.
Published in Dead Snakes, February 29, 2016.
http://www.deadsnakes.blogspot.com
Published in West Ward Quarterly, printed Spring issue 2017.
-The first enchantment and its punishment–
When we and this world were young, long ago,
God inhabited the Garden of Eden and cared us.
He loved us with so stern and strange affection.
Once, woman tried to raise her companion
more close to God,
more equal to Him.
Had not He created man to His likeness?
Indeed, she looked for security and plenitude,
perhaps a kind of a fellowship with their Lord.
Then, she taught man the science of good and evil,
changing his role in the play from man to human,
and from companion to husband.
Plenty of delight, he jumped, danced and sang.
God heard and asked – what this carol? Who does this come from?
Astonished and without clemency, He banished them,
saying – “you will eat bread with the sweat of your face;
toiling the land, you will suffer with thorns and thistles;
your sons will come to light with suffering for your wife.”
Oh, God, You created wise and beautiful a woman
and surely your son has had no other choice than
madly to fall in love with her!
Would it not be time to forget and forgive, disarming
some cherubims’ flaming swords?
Published in Dead Snakes, February 07, 2015.
My father had an aunt who in all parties
made a point that all the time her person
always was the center of conversations,
but she never went to a deathwatch.
Suddenly we discovered the reason of absence.
She never in dreams would be able to compete
against the deceased.
I wander by unvoiced, almost secretly,
like a ghost by corners of a sleeping city,
fearful they could awake arresting me
to die at dawn on merciless lethal light.
First published in Right Hand Pointing issue 83-1, February 2015.
http://www.righthandpointing.net
Published in Highland Park Poetry, Winter 2016 Muses’ Gallery, 04-January-2016.
http://www.highlandparkpoetry.org/themusesgallery.html
Published in The Chamber Magazine, May 7 2021
http://www.thechambermagazine.com
Always on Tuesday, Saint Anthony’s day,
I attend Mass at Saint Anthony’s church,
the littlest and farthermost of my town.
Indeed, it is more like a chapel.
Few people go there, they pray mainly
at Saint Vincent’s, in Central Square,
that looks as refulgent as a Cathedral.
They are unaware that the church I go to
was built on the ground of old, or better,
the oldest of our cemeteries.
I know that great-grandparents’ bones
are in the foundation of Saint Anthony’s.
And I firmly believe that
my ancestors dispense their blessings,
along with those of our Lord
and of the Saint of every Tuesday evening.
Published in “Whispers”, February 02, 2016.
http://www.whispersinthewind333.blogspot.com
— A Children’s Chorus —
Every day I fetch my granddaughter,
four and a half, invariably by five pm,
from her kindergarten.
Parents waiting at the classroom door,
she suddenly grabs me by the hands and,
to the teacher’s and everyone’s astonishment,
leads her colleagues,
in all sixteen, to sing
happy birthday for me.
So, she gives me a wrapping paper folded
like a letter, in pencil written – I love you.
What more needs a man?
Published in Right Hand Pointing, issue 94, January 2016.
edilsonmeloferreira 