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.