Blue

A million years to form, a blue sapphire takes a fingerprint

from the meta-rock around it, while the titanium seeps in. 

Egyptians ground down lapis lazuli into the first blue pigment,

for art, for makeup, for the elite.  Symbolizing those who win.

Tinctoria, just a crop that overgrew in fields of green, 

yet the true source of indigo, 

the dye for blue jeans.

Ultramarinus, beyond the sea.

With its special method of absorbing light rays, 

a rainbow boils down to one degree,

only blue expansiveness.   

A ship in the olden days, after losing a crewman, 

flew a blue flag as it returned to shore.  

Today it’s called feeling blue, but human. 

When the thrill is gone. 

Painted ceramics, a trick of the eye, B.B. King,

and glancing down at the sapphire my grandmother left me. 

Perhaps it’s just the way my two blue irises see these things.  

 March 2020