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Ch 11 · Flamingo Poetry · Pablo Neruda

Keeping
Quiet

20 MCQs NCERT Class 12 Updated May 2026
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Chapter Overview

A pacifist meditation. Neruda invites all of humanity to count to twelve, keep still, and listen. In that exotic moment — fishermen pause, salt-gatherers pause, war-makers in clean clothes walk with their brothers in the shade — a huge silence might interrupt the cycles of harm. But this stillness is not death; like the earth's winter, it is the quiet that prepares spring.

Key Themes
Key Concepts
Count to twelve
Twelve hours = a complete cycle of time
Pause
Fishermen, salt-gatherers, war-makers — all stop
Huge silence
Interrupts sadness of never understanding ourselves
Not death
'Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death'
Earth's lesson
Winter seems dead, then proves to be alive
Last lines
'Now I'll count up to twelve / and you keep quiet and I will go'
Sample MCQs
Q1. What does the poet propose at the start of the poem?
A. Counting to ten and shouting
B. Counting to twelve and keeping still
C. Counting backward from a hundred
D. Counting the days until a global summit
The poem opens: 'Now we will count to twelve / and we will all keep still.' A meditative collective pause.
Q2. What lesson does the Earth itself teach?
A. That constant motion is essential
B. The value of dormancy — winter stillness leading to spring renewal
C. How to wage war effectively
D. That humans should colonise other planets
Earth's seasons show — what seems dead in winter proves alive in spring. Stillness is renewal, not death.