Questions

To My Children and Grandchildren

Inspired by Pablo Neruda*

Will strawberries and cholla cacti

ever grow fond of each other?

How do the fragrances of flowers

make the stars twinkle?

If you were to start over, would you start

in a waterfall or where 

the Columbia River meets the Pacific?

Or, if from the end, how long will it

take you to reach the beginning? 

Do storms at sea originate

from a wild ride of tides?

When was the last time

you asked a foggy question?

Do you still have room  

for an array of misty answers?

When mesquite trees talk to the sky,

are the palo verde trees jealous?

Will redwoods scold noisy campground children,

or will rain sufficiently 

dampen their enthusiasm?

How many landscapes in Arizona

have moved to the suburbs?

If poets write poems they don’t understand,

does that mean they know 

what they are doing?

*The Book of Questions (El libro de las preguntas)

by Pablo Neruda, Copper Canyon Press, 2001.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 51