Alone [he] stare[s] into the frost’s white face.
It’s going nowhere, and [he]—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.
Osip Mandelstam
January 16, 1937