An Approaching Sound, by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Return of the Dove to the Ark, by John Everett Millais (Britain) 1851

An Approaching Sound 
  
“And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”
Genesis 8.11 

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. 
A land we have not yet arrived to,
but we heard an approaching sound   
of the beating of the wings of the dove
we released in our present generation.
The one that is bringing in its beak
the green branch of the tree of peace 
and entire fraternal human feelings.

Edilson Afonso Ferreira 

Mr. Ferreira, 76 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Widely published in selected international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67, after retiring as a bank employee. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize 2017, his first poetry collection, Lonely Sailor, One Hundred Poems, was launched in London, in November of 2018. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com. .