From A German War Primer

Who built the seven gates of Thebes? 
The books are filled with names of kings. 
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? 
And Babylon, so many times destroyed. 
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses, 
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it? 
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished 
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome 
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom 
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song. 
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend 
The night the seas rushed in, 
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves. 

Young Alexander conquered India. 
He alone? 
Caesar beat the Gauls. 
Was there not even a cook in his army? 
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet 
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears? 
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War. 
Who triumphed with him? 

Each page a victory 
At whose expense the victory ball? 
Every ten years a great man, 
Who paid the piper? 

So many particulars. 
So many questions.

- By Bertolt Brecht

Love After Love

E-Books

The time will come,
When with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott