Art masters never saw Madonna
and the Child they were commissioned
to depict,
and from Tuscany to Lower Saxony
her image glows serene or solemn,
patrician, robust, gilded –
like a celestial bliss.

With Picasso
you can learn a sorrow
he was not afraid to see;
his Maternities are blue
and this blue is murky.

© Elena Malec