You Won’t Find Consolation

or. The deer, nearly
Color blind, see blue

Better than we do, more
Blue than we know, a blue

I am not consoled
Lives beyond me. Imagine

Their sky, saturated, how
Do they bear it, and

The alpine lake where
They drink in summer, glacier-

Fed, reflecting back it all back
Plus. Consider

The glacier, blue at heart deep-
Frozen for millennia, blue

Its core and vanishing
In your lifetime. A rush,

A trickle, this is how
It goes? Around the lake,

Boulders harden themselves. 
Green firs. And there, a perfect

Center, the lake’s clear,
Unreadable eye.

Copyright © 2019 by Katharine Coles. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 17, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.