Six Questions (from Pablo Neruda)

Over at dVerse Poets Pub  Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft is our host and has asked us to write Ghazal using at least one of the lines by Pablo Neruda from his book of poetry – “The Book of Questions” in which he poses 320 questions and answers in couplet form, and she has asked us to use at least one of the six question lines she has selected. I found all six questions stimulating and linked them in this poem.

Why was I not born mysterious? – Sorrowful
Then nations would smite down my enemy furious – angry

Why did I grow up without companions – lonely
compadres and friends in this world so curious? – and unloved

And do unshed tears wait in little lakes – weeping
lurking to ambush we unwary and drown us? – vulnerable

And Why does Spring once again offer its green clothes – landless
springing up in the rubble of our homes mocking us? – homeless

How long do others speak if we have already spoken – quashed
one hundred years, pleading, crying and dying in the dust? – and denied

Even hope itself may eventually die – we should be hopeless
Isn’t it better never than too late for us? – flattened too.

How long do others speak if we have already spoken? – We still
As long as it takes for you to hear us – cry out

And Why does Spring once again offer its green clothes? – bear children
Because life must triumph, improbable, delirious – all we can

And do unshed tears wait in little lakes? – don’t hold back
Yes but cry them, use them, water the dust – start again

Why did I grow up without companions? – seek new friends
Because the world heard only another victim’s fuss – in a world of oppressed

Why was I not born mysterious? – we find other victims in common
See the wonderful in the ordinary which is us – our voices raised together

There are no especially deserving winners – give us all our due
no one deserves our land over us – “Equality now!”

Equal status and our own statehood – “Never Again!”
with nobody ruling over us – “Give us Our Due!”

Borrowing these six Neruda questions – “Now!”
the poet, Andrew, seeks to give voice to us…

© Andrew Wilson, 2024