Neruda's questions

Sifting through books at home, stacked in tall piles on the dinner table, sullen and silent waiting to hear the news of who stays; who goes. I find among them a copy of Pablo Neruda's (PFA #253) The Book of Questions. I take it with me on the bus; Chip Spann has been looking for a copy and I can give it to him tonight, at Jack Hirschman's (PFA #19) reading. I find myself reading as the bus lurchs along Folsom, turning the pages quickly, the poems short, each stanza a question. I leave at the back of the bus, the corner of 24th street, two favorites wheat-pasted to memory:

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 the memories of the poor
huddle together in the villages?

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


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

Is there a collector of clouds
in the Columbian 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?