In the cold season, in a place more accustomed to heat than to cold, to flat plains more than to heights, a child was born in a cave to save the world: It snowed as only deserts can snow in winter. Everything seemed immense to Him: His mother’s breast, the yellow steam from oxen’s nostrils, the magi — Balthazar, Caspar, Melchior; their gifts, dragged into this place. He was but a point. And the star was also a point. Attentively, unblinking, through sparse clouds, at the child in the manger, from afar, from the depths of the Universe, from its farthest edge, the star gazed into the cave. And it was the Father’s gaze. Iosif Brodski, 1987