Pablo Neruda's The Book of Questions, Part 2 of 2

XLI

What did the tree learn from the earth

to be able to talk with the sky?

XLIV

And why does my skeleton pursue me

if my soul has fallen away?

LVI

You don't believe that dromedaries

keep moonlight in their humps?

Don't they sow it in the desert

with secret persistence?

LVIII

And what was beating in the night?

Were they planets or horseshoes?

LIX

And which flag unfurled there

where they didn't forget me?

LXIII

How is the translation of their languages

arranged with the birds?

How do I tell the turtle

that I am slower than he?

LXIV

Do we learn kindness

or the mask of kindness?

. . .

Who assigns names and numbers

to the innumerable innocent?

LXXII

Why so slowly in winter

and later with such a rapid shudder?

LXXIV

When is the appointment of the rose

decreed under the earth?

Pablo Neruda's The Book of Questions, Part 1 of 2

As translated by William O'Daly for Copper Canyon Press and published in 1991.

XIII

Is it true that a black condor

flies at night over my country?

XV

How did the abandoned bicycle

win its freedom?

XX

What do they call a flower

that flies from bird to bird?

. . .

And why did cheese decide

to perform heroic deeds in France?

XXI

Where is the center of the sea?

Why do waves never go there?

XXVII

Do you have room for some thorns?

they asked the rosebush.

XXVIII

Where can you find a bell

that will ring in your dreams?

XXXI

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?

XXXIII

Are they birds or fish

in these nets of moonlight?

XXXV

Will our life not be a tunnel

between two vague clarities?

. . .

Or will life not be a fish

prepared to be a bird?

XXXIX

Do you not weep surrounded by laughter

with bottles of oblivion?

XL

What do they call the sadness

of a solitary sheep?