This was published in a poetry anthology last year. It was inspired by the final photograph ever taken of Grand Duchess Olga:
For Olga
She sits in the background of an old photograph
at a wooden table on shipboard
with two vases full of flowers,
her hands resting atop a parcel in her lap,
and a broad-brimmed black hat tied beneath her chin.
She wears a high-necked blouse beneath
a black jacket with white lapels—
court dress and cotillions are no more.
She turns her head slightly
and a single pearl earring comes into view,
the final vestige of the
princesse impériale.
Her high, broad cheekbones stand out
in sharp relief—
always slender, she is thin and fragile as of late,
an old woman of twenty-two years.
Her gaze is unfocused, staring at nothing
in particular,
sadly contemplating, perhaps,
upon her world forever gone,
and that those tired eyes
have seen too much for anyone.
It is not hate that will overcome the evil that is now in the world, but only love.
—O.N.
