Christmas
Star
by Joseph Brodsky
In a cold time, in a
place accustomed more
To scorching heat,
than cold, to the flatness of plain,
than to hills: A
child was born in a cave to save the world.
And it stormed, as
only the winter’s desert storms rain.
Everything seemed
huge to him: his mother’s breast,
The yellow steam of
the camels’ breath. And from afar,
Their gifts carried
here, the Magi, Balthazar, Melchior, Caspar.
He was all of him
just a dot. And that dot was a star.
Attentively and
fixedly, through the sparse clouds
Upon the recumbent
child in the manger, through the night’s haze
From the depths of
the universe, from its end and bound,
A star watched over
the cave. And that was the Father’s gaze.
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