Ernst Kipling sent me this poem as an answer to mine from yesterday:

“The Clown inside his study reads of war
and ponders deeply where the letters burn:
‘In war’s upheaval all new things are born.’

We raise our malls where clashes and massacres were,
unmindful of the cost of present peace.
The ravens’ shadows lingeringly abide.

A Clown can find in old accounts imbued
with human loss, a most instructive compass:
what soldiers chose, and what they did not choose,
purified by the terror and the goal...

In solitary rooms each Clown turns west
and either lets or does not let beguile
the sunset’s hues across this sparkling waste;
and learns at last defeat is not the worst.”