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Book Of Questions

I 

Why don’t the immense airplanes 
fly around with their children? 

Which yellow bird 
fills its nest with lemons? 

Why don’t they train helicopters 
to suck honey from the sunlight? 

Where did the full moon leave 
its sack of flour tonight? 


II 

If I have died and don’t know it 
of whom do I ask the time? 

In France, where does spring 
get so many leaves? 

Where can a blind man live 
who is pursued by bees? 

If the color yellow runs out 
with what will we make bread? 


Ill 

Tell me, is the rose naked 
or is that her only dress? 

Why do trees conceal 
the splendor of their roots? 

Who hears the regrets 
of the thieving automobile? 

Is there anything in the world sadder 
than a train standing in the rain? 

IV 

How many churches are there in heaven? 

Why doesn’t the shark attack 
the brazen sirens? 

Does smoke talk with the clouds? 

Is it true our desires 
must be watered with dew? 

V 

What are you guarding under your hump? 
said a camel to a turtle. 

And the turtle replied: 

What do you say to oranges? 

Does a pear tree have more leaves 
than Remembrance of Things Past ? 

Why do leaves commit suicide 
when they feel yellow? 


VI 

Why does the hat of night 
fly so full of holes? 

What does old ash say 
when it passes near the fire? 

Why do clouds cry so much, 
growing happier and happier? 

For whom do the pistils of the sun burn 
in the shadow of the eclipse? 

How many bees are there in a day? 


VII 

Is peace the peace of the dove? 
Does the leopard wage war? 

Why does the professor teach 
the geography of death? 

What happens to swallows 
who are late for school? 

Is it true they scatter 
transparent letters across the sky? 


VIII 

What is it that upsets the volcanoes 
that spit fire, cold and rage? 

Why wasn’t Christopher Columbus 
able to discover Spain? 

How many questions does a cat have? 

Do tears not yet spilled 
wait in small lakes? 

Or are they invisible rivers 
that run toward sadness? 


IX 

Is the sun the same as yesterday’s 
or is this fire different from that fire? 

How do we thank the clouds 
for their fleeting abundance? 

From where does the thundercloud come 
with its black sacks of tears? 

Where are all those names 
sweet as cakes of yesteryear? 

Where did they go, the Donaldas, 
the Clorindas, the Eduvigises? 


X 

What will they think of my hat, 
the Polish, in a hundred years? 

What will they say about my poetry 
who never touched my blood? 

How do we measure the foam 
that slips from the beer? 

What does a fly do, imprisoned 
in one of Petrarch’s sonnets? 


XI 

How long do others speak 
if we have already spoken? 

What would Jose Marti say 
about the pedagogue Marinello? 

How old is November anyway? 

What does autumn go on paying for 
with so much yellow money? 

What is the name of the cocktail 
that mixes vodka and lightning bolts? 


XII 

And at whom does rice smile 
with infinitely many white teeth? 

Why in the darkest ages 
do they write with invisible ink? 

Does the beauty from Caracas know 
how many skirts the rose has? 

Why do the fleas 

and literary sergeants bite me? 


XIII 

Is it true that voluptuous crocodiles 
live only in Australia? 

How do the oranges divide up 
sunlight in the orange tree? 

Did salt’s teeth come 
from a bitter mouth? 

Is it true that a black condor 
flies at night over my country? 

And what did the rubies say 
standing before the juice of pomegranates? 

Why doesn’t Thursday talk itself 
into coming after Friday? 

Who shouted with glee 
when the color blue was born? 

Why does the earth grieve 
when the violets appear? 

XV 

But is it true that the vests 
are preparing to revolt? 

Why does spring once again 
offer its green clothes? 

Why does agriculture laugh 
at the pale tears of the sky? 

How did the abandoned bicycle 
win its freedom? 


XVI 

Do salt and sugar work 
to build a white tower? 

Is it true that in an anthill 
dreams are a duty? 

Do you know what the earth 
meditates upon in autumn? 

(Why not give a medal 
to the first golden leaf?) 


XVII 

Have you noticed that autumn 
is like a yellow cow? 

And how later the autumnal beast 
is a dark skeleton? 

And how winter collects 
so many layers of blue? 

And who asked springtime 
for its kingdom of clear air? 


XVIII 

How did the grapes come to know 
the cluster’s party line? 

And do you know which is harder, 
to let run to seed or to do the picking? 

It is bad to live without a hell: 
aren’t we able to reconstruct it? 

And to position sad Nixon 
with his buttocks over the brazier? 

Roasting him on low 
with North American napalm? 


Have they counted the gold 
in the cornfields? 

Do you know that in Patagonia 
at midday, mist is green? 

Who sings in the deepest water 
in the abandoned lagoon? 

At what does watermelon laugh 
when it’s murdered? 


XX 

Is it true that amber contains 
the tears of the sirens? 

What do they call a flower 
that flies from bird to bird? 

Isn’t it better never than late? 

And why did cheese decide 
to perform heroic deeds in France? 


XXI 

And when light was forged 
did it happen in Venezuela? 

Where is the center of the sea? 
Why do waves never go there? 

Is it true that the meteor 
was a dove of amethyst? 

Am I allowed to ask my book 
whether it’s true I wrote it? 


XXII 

Love, love, his and hers, 
if they’ve gone, where did they go? 

Yesterday, yesterday I asked my eyes 
when will we see each other again? 

And when you change the landscape 
is it with bare hands or with gloves? 

How does rumor of the sky smell 
when the blue of water sings? 


XXIII 

If the butterfly transmogrifies 
does it turn into a flying fish? 

Then it wasn’t true 

that God lived on the moon? 

What color is the scent 
of the blue weeping of violets? 

How many weeks are in a day 
and how many years in a month? 


Is 4 the same 4 for everybody? 
Are all sevens equal? 

When the convict ponders the light 
is it the same light that shines on you? 

For the diseased, what color 
do you think April is? 

Which occidental monarchy 
will fly flags of poppies? 


XXV 

Why did the grove undress itself 
only to wait for the snow? 

And how do we know which is God 
among the Gods of Calcutta? 

Why do all silkworms 
live so raggedly? 

Why is it so hard, the sweetness 
of the heart of the cherry? 

Is it because it must die 
or because it must carry on? 


XXVI 

Has that solemn senator 
who dedicated a castle to me 

already devoured, with his nephew, 
the assassin’s cake? 

Whom does the magnolia fool 
with its fragrance of lemons? 

Where does the eagle put its dagger 
when it ^ lies down on a cloud? 


Perhaps they died of shame 
those trains that lost their way? 

Who has never seen bitter aloe? 

Where were they planted, 
the eyes of comrade Paul Eluard? 

Do you have room for some thorns? 
they asked the rosebush. 


XXVIII 

Why don’t old people remember 
debts or burns? 

Was it real, that scent 
of the surprised maiden? 

Why don’t the poor understand 
as soon as they stop being poor? 

Where can you find a bell 
that will ring in your dreams? 


XXIX 

What is the distance in round meters 
between the sun and the oranges? 

Who wakes up the sun when it falls asleep 
on its burning bed? 

Does the earth sing like a cricket 
in the music of the heavens? 

Is it true that sadness is thick 
and melancholy thin? 


XXX 

When he wrote his blue book 
wasn’t Ruben Dario green? 

Wasn’t Rimbaud scarlet, 

Gongora a shade of violet? 

And Victor Hugo tricolored? 

And I yellow ribbons? 

Do all memories of the poor 
huddle together in the villages? 

And do the rich keep their dreams 
in a box carved from minerals? 


Whom can I ask what I came 
to make happen in this world? 

Why do I move without wanting to, 
why am I not able to sit still? 

Why do I go rolling without wheels, 
flying without wings or feathers, 

and why did I decide to migrate 
if my bones live in Chile? 


XXXII 

Is there anything sillier in life 
than to be called Pablo Neruda? 

Is there a collector of clouds 
in the Colombian sky? 

Why do assemblies of umbrellas 
always occur in London? 

Did the Queen of Sheba 

have blood the color of amaretto? 

When Baudelaire used to weep 
did he weep black tears? 

XXXIII 

And why is the sun such a bad companion 
to the traveler in the desert? 

And why is the sun so congenial 
in the hospital garden? 

Are they birds or fish 
in these nets of moonlight? 

Was it where they lost me 
that I finally found myself? 


XXXIV 

With the virtues that I forgot 
could I sew a new suit? 

Why did the best rivers 
leave to flow in France? 

Why does it not dawn in Bolivia 
after the night of Guevara? 

And does his assassinated heart 
search there for his assassins? 

Do the black grapes of the desert 
have a basic thirst for tears? 


XXXV 

Will our life not be a tunnel 
between two vague clarities? 

Or will it not be a clarity 
between two dark triangles? 

Or will life not be a fish 
prepared to be a bird? 

Will death consist of non-being 
or of dangerous substances? 


XXXVI 

In the end, won’t death 
be an endless kitchen? 

What will your disintegrated bones do, 
search once more for your form? 

Will your destruction merge 
with another voice and other light? 

Will your worms become part 
of dogs or of butterflies? 


XXXVII 

Will Czechoslovakians or turtles 
be born from your ashes? 

Will your mouth kiss carnations 
with other, imminent lips? 

But do you know from where death 
comes, from above or from below? 

From microbes or walls, 
from wars or winter? 


XXXVIII 

Do you not believe that death lives 
inside a cherry’s sun? 

Cannot a kiss of spring 
also kill you? 

Do you believe that ahead of you 
grief carries the flag of your destiny? 

And in the skull do you discover 
your ancestry condemned to bone? 


XXXIX 

Do you not also sense danger 
in the sea’s laughter? 

Do you not see a threat 
in the bloody silk of the poppy? 

Do you not see that the apple tree flowers 
only to die in the apple? 

Do you not weep surrounded by laughter 
with bottles of oblivion? 


XL 

To whom does the ragged condor 
report after its mission? 

What do they call the sadness 
of a solitary sheep? 

And what happens in the dovecote 
if the doves learn to sing? 

If the flies make honey 
will they offend the bees? 


How long does a rhinoceros last 
after he’s moved to compassion? 

What’s new for the leaves 
of recent spring? 

In winter, do the leaves live 
in hiding with the roots? 

What did the tree learn from the earth 
to be able to talk with the sky? 


X L 1 1 

Does he who is always waiting suffer more 
than he who’s never waited for anyone? 

Where does the rainbow end, 
in your soul or on the horizon? 

Perhaps heaven will be, 
for suicides, an invisible star? 

Where are the vineyards of iron 
from where the meteor falls? 


Who was she who made love to you 
in your dream, while you slept? 

Where do the things in dreams go? 

Do they pass to the dreams of others? 

And does the father who lives in your dreams 
die again when you awaken? 

In dream, do plants blossom 
and their solemn fruit ripen? 


X L I V 

Where is the child I was, 
still inside me or gone? 

Does he know that I never loved him 
and that he never loved me? 

Why did we spend so much time 
growing up only to separate? 

Why did we both not die 
when my childhood died? 

And why does my skeleton pursue me 
if my soul has fallen away? 


Is the yellow of the forest 
the same as last year’s? 

And does the black flight 

of the relentless seabird repeat itself? 

And is where space ends 
called death or infinity? 

What weighs more heavily on the belt, 
sadnesses or memories? 


X L V I 

And what is the name of the month 
that falls between December and January? 

By what authority did they number 
the twelve grapes of the cluster? 

Why didn’t they give us longer 
months that last all year? 

Did spring never deceive you 
with kisses that didn’t blossom? 


XLVII 

In the middle of autumn 
do you hear yellow explosions? 

By what reason or injustice 
does the rain weep its joy? 

Which birds lead the way 
when the flock takes flight? 

From what does the hummingbird hang 
its dazzling symmetry? 


X LV III 

Are the breasts of the sirens 
spiral shells from the sea? 

Or are they petrified waves 

or the stationary play of the spume? 

Hasn’t the meadow caught fire 
with wild fireflies? 

Did autumn’s hairdressers 
uncomb these chrysanthemums? 


X L I X 

When I see the sea once more 

will the sea have seen or not seen me? 

Why do the waves ask me 
the same questions I ask them? 

And why do they strike the rock 
with so much wasted passion? 

Don’t they get tired of repeating 
their declaration to the sand? 


L 

Who can convince the sea 
to be reasonable? 

What’s it get from demolishing 
blue amber, green granite? 

And why so many wrinkles 
and so many holes in the rock? 

I came from behind the sea, 

now where do I go when it cuts me off? 

Why did I close the road, 
falling into the sea’s trap? 


Why do I hate cities 
smelling of women and urine? 

Isn’t the city the great ocean 
of quaking mattresses? 

Doesn’t Oceania of the winds 
have islands and palm trees? 

Why did I return to the indifference 
of the limitless ocean? 


LI I 

How large was the black octopus 
that darkened the day’s peace? 

Were its branches made of iron 
and its eyes, of dead fire? 

And why did the tricolored whale 
cut me off on the road? 


Who devoured before my eyes 
a shark covered with pustules? 

Who was guilty, the squall 
or the bloodstained fishes? 

Is this continual breaking 
the order or the battle? 


LIV 

Is it true that swallows 

are going to settle on the moon? 

Will they carry spring with them 
tearing it from the cornices? 

Will the moon swallows 
take off in autumn? 

Will they search for traces of bismuth 
by pecking at the sky? 

And will they return to the balconies 
dusted with ash? 


Why don’t they send moles 
and turtles to the moon? 

Couldn’t the animals that engineer 
hollows and tunnels 

take charge of 
these distant inspections? 


You don’t believe that dromedaries 
keep moonlight in their humps? 

Don’t they sow it in the desert 
with secret persistence? 

And hasn’t the sea been lent 
for a brief time to the earth? 

Won’t we have to give it back 
with its tides to the moon? 


L V 1 1 

Wouldn’t it be best to outlaw 
interplanetary kisses? 

Why not analyze these things 
before outfitting other planets? 

And why not the platypus 
who is dressed for space? 

Weren’t horseshoes made 
for horses on the moon? 


And what was beating in the night? 
Were they planets or horseshoes? 

This morning must I choose 
between the naked sea and the sky? 

And why is the sky dressed 
so early in its mists? 

What was awaiting me in Isla Negra? 
The green truth or decorum? 


Why was I not born mysterious? 

Why did I grow up without companions? 

Who ordered me to tear down 
the doors of my own pride? 

And who went out to live for me 
when I was sleeping or sick? 

And which flag unfurled there 
where they didn’t forget me? 


LX 

And what importance do I have 
in the courtroom of oblivion? 

Which is the true picture 
of how the future will turn out? 

Is it the grain seed 
among its yellow masses? 

Or is it the bony heart, 
that delegate of the peach? 


Does the living drop of mercury 
run downward or forever? 

Will my sorrowful poetry 
watch with my own eyes? 

Will I have my smell and my pain 
when, destroyed, I go on sleeping? 


L X 1 1 

What does it mean to persist 
on the alley of death? 

How in salt’s desert 
is it possible to blossom? 

In the sea of nothing happens, 
are there clothes to die in? 

Now that the bones are gone 
who lives in the final dust? 


L X 1 1 1 

How is the translation of their languages 
arranged with the birds? 

How do I tell the turtle 
that I am slower than he? 

How do I ask the flea 
for his championship stats? 

Or tell the carnations 

that I’m grateful for their fragrance? 


L X I V 

Why do my faded clothes 
flutter like a flag? 

Am I sometimes evil 
or am I always good? 

Do we learn kindness 
or the mask of kindness? 

Isn’t the rosebush of evil white 

and aren’t the flowers of goodness black? 

Who assigns names and numbers 
to the innumerable innocent? 


L X V 

Does the drop of metal shine 
like a syllable in my song? 

Does a word sometimes 
slither like a serpent? 

Didn’t a name like an orange 
creep into your heart? 

From which river do fish come? 
From the word silver smithing? 

When they stow too many vowels 
don’t sailing ships wreck? 


Do the o’s of the locomotive 
cast smoke, fire and steam? 

In which language does rain fall 
over tormented cities? 

At dawn, which smooth syllables 
does the ocean air repeat? 

Is there a star more wide open 
than the word poppy ? 

Are there two fangs sharper 
than the syllables of jackal? 


LX VII 

Can you love me, syllabary, 
and give me a meaningful kiss? 

Is a dictionary a sepulchre 
or a sealed honeycomb? 

In which window did I remain 
watching buried time? 

Or is what I see from afar 
what I have not yet lived? 


L X V 1 1 1 

When does the butterfly read 
what flies written on its wings? 

So it can understand its itinerary, 
which letters does the bee know? 

And with which numbers does the ant 
subtract its dead soldiers? 

What are cyclones called 
when they stand still? 


Do thoughts of love fall 
into extinct volcanoes? 

Is a crater an act of vengeance 
or a punishment of the earth? 

With which stars do they go on speaking, 
the rivers that never reach the sea? 


L X X 

What forced labor 
does Hitler do in hell ? 

Does he paint walls or cadavers? 

Does he sniff the fumes of the dead? 

Do they feed him the ashes 
of so many burnt children? 

Or, since his death, have they given him 
blood to drink from a funnel? 

Or do they hammer into his mouth 
the pulled gold teeth? 


L X X I 

Or do they lay him down to sleep 
on his barbed wire? 

Or are they tattooing his skin 
for the lamps in hell? 

Or do black mastiffs of flame 
bite him without mercy? 

Or must he travel without rest, 
night and day with his prisoners? 

Or must he die without dying 
eternally under the gas? 


L X X 1 1 

If all rivers are sweet 
where does the sea get its salt? 

How do the seasons know 
they must change their shirt? 

Why so slowly in winter 
and later with such a rapid shudder? 

And how do the roots know 
they must climb toward the light? 

And then greet the air 
with so many flowers and colors? 

Is it always the same spring 
who revives her role? 


L X X 1 1 1 

Who works harder on earth, 
a human or the grain’s sun? 

Between the fir tree and the poppy 
whom does the earth love more? 

Between the orchids and the wheat 
which does it favor? 

Why a flower with such opulence 
and wheat with its dirty gold? 

Does autumn enter legally 
or is it an underground season? 


Why does it linger in the branches 
until the leaves fall? 

And where are its yellow trousers 
left hanging? 

Is it true that autumn seems to wait 
for something to happen? 

Perhaps the trembling of a leaf 
or the movement of the universe? 

Is there a magnet under the earth, 
brother magnet of autumn? 

When is the appointment of the rose 
decreed under the earth?