Frost

FROST
The dead time of falling leaves,
Shoals of the last geese.
Don't be upset:
Fear has big eyes.

Let the wind, the rowan be busy,
Scares her before bed.
The order of creation is deceiving
Like a fairy tale with a good ending.

You will wake up from hibernation tomorrow
And, going out onto the winter surface,
Again around the corner of the pumping station
You will stand rooted to the spot.

Again these white flies
And the roofs, and the Yuletide grandfather,
Both the pipes and the lop-eared forest
Dressed as a jester in a masquerade.

Everything is icy in a big way
In a hat to the very eyebrows
And a creeping wolverine
Peeps from the branches.

You go on with disbelief.
The path dives into a ravine.
Here frost vaulted tower,
Lattice boards on the doors.

Behind a thick snow curtain
Some kind of gatehouse wall,
The road, and the edge of the copse,
And a new thicket is visible.

Solemn calm
Threaded
Looks like a quatrain
About the sleeping princess in the coffin.

And the white dead kingdom
Throwing mentally in a shiver
I whisper softly, "Thank you,
You give more than asked. "

B. Pasternak