Blue Stone Blues

Here we are again, the eye skimming along the grid
of what it’s given, then doing its calculus—

this overcast morning, lingering over
the lightfast, loving what’s stable;

but also what shimmers into a range
of forms. Though damp and rain

have drained the green out of the trees,
a scrape of bark yields copper undertones,

or ultramarine— extracted from stones once
more expensive than vermilion or even gold,

the blue of lapis lazuli’s a sheen
that royals what it’s smeared upon.

Sometimes I want to hold even a fleck of it
in the back of my throat: oh little pebble I

might lick for luck, tasting of sulphates or
blood, tumbled smooth by rough-toothed days.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.