Heaven knows Purple
Intro: up to 50 words (delete this text and enter your own)
Colour between colours it moves
between reds and blues, blushes
a lover’s heart, tinges a cardinal’s robe,
lavishes an emperor’s might,
yet cries out in blood.
Heaven knows purple,
Jesus wore it, Tyrian Royal purple, God’s colour,
first found in sea creatures
from the Holy Land.
Before spring, after the rise of the dog star,
shells were caught from the deep,
then boiled in a leaden vessel.
Wool drenched in its dyes
laid out after sunrise, soaked up
the slow sunbeams, changing the colour
from a light to deep green,
fading to sea green, then blue
until a purple remained.
Heaven knows why
this colour purple plays on the mind.
It is the colour of burning smack
on silver foil. Rising like incense
it purples prose, passages and patches,
erodes the greenbelts of style.
High in a haze, the purple moon,
not to appear over the top,
disguises in ivory.
I enjoyed this, Yutka. I adore “it purples prose, passages and patches“. As to the the question: Well, it represents transformation, doesn’t it. Also, being the colour of the 7th chakra – I think it may be the colour of the portal from ‘here to there’. (Hence your own spiritual awakening association.) Without this poem I would have been ignorant of the process the ancients used for its creation. (I had not even thought how they would have done it.) I think there may be greater significance in “not to appear over the top, disguises in ivory.” than at first… Read more »
Thank you for your comments! So glad you learned something….about my last line: the moon, I think wants to keep the secrets, that’s why she hides them (most of the time) , but just in a weak moment…..
Reminds me of the Phoenician’s in their purple dye quest; and of course purple was always the royal colour; a most lovely poem.
Best….Dodge
Thank you Dodge, for your nice comments