.....as blue as robins' eggs
though time’s chasm opens before my very sight,
and the vertigo returns with the Lapis Lazuli.
of the Byzantimes, Persians, Armenians, Assyrians.
each civilization alloted supreme value to the blue of lapis lazuli.
as blue as blue robins’ eggs,
it produced ultramarine, a pigment of supreme rarity and value. in pursuit ofthe blue.
a proud, educated Armenian: a student, a poet, a linguist and a singer of songs.
educated in Athens, one of those Armenians with an intense awareness of the value of blue.
Moses worked late in the libraries of Alexandria and Palestine,
he sojourned to Rome, Athens, and back to Byzantium.
returning to Armenia about 440AD Moses retired into solitude.
until it happened perchance that the Catholicos Bishop.
he was entertained by the peasants,
and an old ragged man was urged to say something.
but, to the surprise of all present,
he recited an impromptu ode, greeting the Catholicos with pieces of lapis lazuli.
the man with the bluest of lapis-blue eyes.
at first the Catholicos was incredulous,
he recognised him as his former fellow-student,
whereupon he burst into tears and held Moses closely in a long embrace.
