I felt in soul and body,
for the first time in years,
the silence after a blizzard,
the even light of the stars.
Should the magi wish to see
their kindness to the end,
they’d bring me sheets of paper
A candle. Matches. And a pen.
by Варлам Тихонович Шаламов (Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov)
(1954)
translated by Robert Chandler
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