For Queen Barbara
Our Lady of Ausros Vartai
The beauty of those eyes, their sadness, has come alive
in my portrait. I painted you as a northern Madonna.
I watched you cry for your stillborn child. I remember
your sudden smiles.
I watched your endless waiting for messages from the King.
This endless waiting became your fate. It marked your features
with grief. And so I removed you from the palace and took you
into the public square. I gave you the headdress
of an ordinary, low-born woman. I painted you without your crown
or your princely gowns. But some centuries later
the jewelers of Vilnius enshrined you in splendid robes,
adorned you with golden tulips and silver leaves
and lifted you into the chapel above the city gate.
And in the end your strange belated fate
was to be the sky with its blinding dawns.
(Judita Vaiciunaite)
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Based on Topics: Sadness Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Beauty Poems, Smiling Poems, Fate & Destiny Poems, Woman Poems, Grief Poems, Cities PoemsBased on Keywords: low-born, stillborn, vilnius, headdress, jewelers