Kristina Užėnaitė

Opportunities

There’s no return to opportunities lost...

Elusive as words and time?

As a matchstick

Lit only once?

As a key that you lost

To the closed door

And a train gone

That you missed...

But when the door is closed

Will there be an open window?

And when the train is gone

Maybe it’s worth getting on another?

Should you want to light

The same match again  –

Use a lighter.

There is no return to opportunities lost...

Since they’re elusive as words and time!

My Vilnius

St. Christopher with Baby Jesus,

And in the field at their feet –

A cross

And this city of beauty

With Castle Hill soaring high

The Gate of Dawn and the Mother of God

Looking at Her children

Of many nations and religions

So precious to me.

A city of charming streets,

The Old Town and Square,

Where lies the Cathedral, the belfry and

The Palace of Great Dukes.

The city of artists and heroes

Who left their mark here

Built on legends and traditions

My Vilnius so dear!

         

White Rose

So sweet and noble

Its white petals are like snowflakes

Like shimmering angelic wings

White like a cloud of the morning dawn

Like a clean sheet of paper...

White rose

Cut already... dead

Its tears of dew not yet dry

She gave her life

So you can feast your eyes

In exchange for just your smile.

Kristina Užėnaitė

KRISTINA UŽĖNAITĖ – made her debut in 2014 on World Poetry Day, celebrated by UNESCO. Twice winner of the Rzeźnia Literacka (Literary Slaughterhouse) competition. Since 2014 she has been a member of the New Vilnius Avant-Garde of the Association of Polish Writers in Lithuania. Her works have been translated into Bulgarian and English. She participated in and hosted evening readings and concerts. She has also taken part in international rallies, festivals and poetry meetings. She has published her works in Kurier Wileński and Kalendarz Rodziny Wileńskiej in the 2014, 2017 and 2018 issues, in the Pegaz column of Tygodnik Wileńszczyzny, and also in Poland in Powiat Słupski and the Warsaw-based Praski Świerszcz. Some of her poems were also published in 2017 by the Union of Poles in Belarus in the "Magazyn Polski" monthly, available countrywide. Her individual poems appeared in “W zakolu Wilii (In the bend of the Wilia River)”, an anthology edited by Józef Szostakowski and published in Vilnius (Vilnius 2016); “Świat idzie inną drogą (The world follows a different path)”, an anthology available worldwide and edited by Zbigniew Babiarz Zych (Słupsk 2016); and the “Metafora Współczesności (A metaphor of modern times)” anthology (2017) published by the Kwadrat International Literary and Artistic Group, edited by Alicja Maria Kuberska. Her poems also appeared, inter alia, in “Tomik Poezji Kresowej (A volume of poetry from Eastern Borderlands)”, published during the 23rd and 24th Borderlands Culture Festival, under the honorary patronage of Andrzej Duda, President of the Republic of Poland, by the Mayor of Mrągowo Otolia Siemieniec, and the Association of Vilnius and Vilnius Region Enthusiasts in Mrągowo – President Aniela Dobielska, Mrągowo, 2017.