After viewing a lapis and gold ewer in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The pigment’s name misleads us, hints at seafaring.
Ultramarine, meaning beyond the sea, meaning foreign.
Ultra-expensive, too: Afghan lapis, bluer than ocean.

In the museum, the stone itself is carved into a vessel,
scrolled and grounded, cased in glass. Too small to slake
a thirst, or sail in. Just enough for baptism’s thin stream.

Ground down, it could paint itself: fine azure dust to spin
between glass slab and muller with honey and gum arabic,
ready to trace its own shape, form from absence of form,

the painter’s hand pulling the brush across the paper,
a ship drawn over waves in a high blue wind.
Stella Maris, protector of sailors, take me to where

the curve of the handle dissolves into chased gold,
arching with the young god over a lapis sea, looking
for light in dark water, reflection in bright depth.

 

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From Magma 94

 

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