Claire's Poetry Corner | Jan 15

"Alone I stare into the frost's white face"

Osip Mandelstam

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.