Question Words

Start with snowflakes which fell last June,

Then the first and last notes of the party tune

And the woman who left before some other guests arrived,

Whose perfume remained in the room…

Where are they?

Why-questions might be more difficult.

The sounds of the bells are happy to be translated

                 “Ding-Dong!”

While sad words are more comfortable in an umbrella song…

And I could ask Why are they?

One wonders if hands bestowing, receiving are linked in a chain

Ever circling along…

And How are they?

Who Knows?

And When…

In Gosford Park, Maggie Smith’s character says 

To the screenwriter character

“Oh well, we’ll never see it…”

Is it because he wrote the movie they’re in?

And she can’t get out?

Whereas he is a bridge from without to within?

Who are they?

And now, what would the question be,

About the arrangement of words

To which the answer is “when they’re a riddle?”

Which might start with “if”

But must end with “When are they?”

What about anonymous authors of greeting card poems,

Unknown bottlers of century-old wine

And the man who called the Taj Mahal

A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time?

Or an artist who painted beautiful pictures long ago,

Maybe not thinking “No one will know they are mine…”

Who are they?