Osip Mandelstam (Poet)

Osip Mandelstam,  Jewish-Russian poet: January 15, 1891 - 1938 (murdered in Stalin’s death camp in Vladivostok)…

Illustration: David Levin

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

(Translated by John High and Matvei Yankelevich)