No more guys and girls happily driving
open-air convertible cars on weekends,
free of seat belts tethering their bodies,
sweet winds swaying, fighting and playing
their loose hairs.
No more
children walking on the streets to school,
carrying notebooks in their arms,
not in backpacks, not on buses.
No more
young boys playing marbles in holes
they had dug on vacant lots near home,
their mates flying kites heavens above.
No more
bicycling around only for pleasure,
without protective helmets and gloves.
No more
family sitting on the front porch after dinner,
sharing the latest neighborhood news.
No more
walking in the fields by night,
under tender and puissant moonlight.
No more
people greeting each other and sending good vibes,
even if they were unknown.
No more
fresh milk bottles delivered home by the morning,
but milk boxes at immense supermarkets,
with sleepless cameras furtively watching over us.
No more
letters, no business letters, no love letters,
only emails to be lost in cyberspace.
No more
couples who face the difficulties of everyday life,
profess mutual and sincere one forgiveness,
respect the common oath once made,
so engendering true and honest a love.
No more
parents, sons and daughters going out together at night,
carrying in common dreams, dramas and desires,
like a pack of wolves who have not learned to segregate.
No more
growing, assembling and sharing rooms and lives,
indifferent to some strange customs of those
who never knew to love and like themselves,
our children becoming children of all of us.
Published in Fevers of the Mind, July 12, 2023
http://www.feversofthemind.com
Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, October 9 2023
http://www.lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com
Published in Well Read, November 2024
Published in Voices 2025, May 2025
Published in The Galway Review, July 30 2025
http://www.thegalwayreview.com
Published in Ivo Review, issue Two, December 2025
This poem and all others at this blog, authored by Edilson Afonso Ferreira ©
edilsonmeloferreira 