Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/Questions of the Hour

by Sarah Piatt

QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR. [MARIAN, SIX YEARS OLD.]

"Do angels wear white dresses, say?
 Always, or only in the summer "Do
Their birthdays have to come like mine, in May?
 Do they have scarlet sashes then, or blue?

"When little Jessie died last night,
 How could she walk to Heaven—it is so far?
How did she find the way without a light?
 There wasn't even any moon or star.

"Will she have red or golden wings?
 Then will she have to be a bird, and fly?
Do they take men like presidents and kings
 In hearses with black plumes clean to the sky?

"How old is God? Has He grey hair?
 Can He see yet? Where did He have to stay
Before—you know—He had made—Anywhere?
 Whom does He pray to—when He has to pray?

"How many drops are in the sea?
 How many stars?———well, then, you ought to know
How many flowers are on an apple-tree
 How does the wind look when it doesn't blow?

"Where does the rainbow end? And why
 Did—Captain Kidd—bury the gold there? When
Will this world burn? And will the firemen try
 To put the fire out with the engines then?

"If you should ever die, may we
 Have pumpkins growing in the garden, so
My fairy godmother can come for me,
 When there's a prince's ball, and let me go?

"Read Cinderella just once more———
 What makes—men's other wives—so mean?" I know
That I was tired, it may be cross, before
 I shut the painted book for her to go.

Hours later, from a child's white bed
 "I heard the timid, last queer question start:
"Mamma, are you—my stepmother?" it said.
 The innocent reproof crept to my heart.