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# No Matter What Was Around Them
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/nevazhno-chto-bylo-vokrug/
- Published: 2026-09-10T19:09:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T09:10:41.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Books, People

> No matter what was around them. And no matter  
> what the blizzard was drawlingly howling about;  
> That they were cramped in the shepherd's lodging,  
> That there was no other place for them in the world.

> Firstly, they were together. The second thing,  
> and the main one, was that there were three of them,  
> And everything that was cooked up, made, or given  
> was from now on divided by three at the very least.

> The frosty sky above their halt,  
> with its habit of the great bending down to the small,  
> sparkled with a star. And it had nowhere  
> to hide henceforth from the infant's gaze.

> The fire blazed, but the log was burning down;  
> All were asleep. The star differed from the others  
> more than by its glow, which seemed superfluous,  
> but by its capacity to mingle the distant with the near.

*Literal translation*

The poem “No Matter What Was Around Them”, written by Joseph Brodsky on 25 December 1990, was published in his last collection, *Landscape with a Flood*