“Alone I stare into the frost’s white face”

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Alone I stare into the frost’s white face. 
It’s going nowhere, and I—from nowhere. 
Everything ironed flat, pleated without a wrinkle: 
Miraculous, the breathing plain. 

Meanwhile the sun squints at this starched poverty—
The squint itself consoled, at ease . . . 
The ten-fold forest almost the same . . . 
And snow crunches in the eyes, innocent, like clean bread. 

January 16, 1937


© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam