Call it pareidolia or what you will, but the clouds over my residence this afternoon appeared to be an ominously 
accurate representation of my horror and intense grief – nothing less – over the events unfolding in Ukraine, especially because I have close personal friends from both Ukraine and Russia.
The lines from Wilfred Owen’s Strange Meeting came to mind:
“And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.”
The title of another poem of Owen is borrowed from Horace – Dulce et Decorum Est. The poem has the well-known lines:
“In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
In the final lines of the poem, Owen exposes the Horatian phrase (which means “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”) for what it is – “The old Lie.”
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
Shillong
February 26, 2022