Giotto di Bondone, "The Flight into Egypt" / Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Flight into Egypt
by Joseph Brodsky
…nobody knew where the herdsman had come from.
Out there in a desert chosen by the sky for
the miracle, they stopped for the night and kindled
a campfire, echoing the star. Without sensing
the role he would play, in a snow-laden shelter
the child lay asleep amid a golden halo
of hair, which had already taken on the habit
of radiance—not just for this dark-haired empire
at this moment, but, truly akin to the star, for
as long as the earth exists: everywhere.
December 25, 1988
Translated from the Russian by Jamie Olson
