Colour Theory

Like most ancient civilizations, the Greeks

had no word for blue.

Did they fail to perceive it

or was it too obvious to require naming?

Just everywhere, like the air.

Thus Homer's "wine-dark" sea was not

Mediterranean turqoise

but other, turbulent,

driven by God-breath and fate:

the element heroes sail on.

Although he also described sheep as "wine-coloured"

so what do I know?

I know this: all blues are cool

but some blues are cooler.

For one hundred dollars a liter

you can buy a tin of Klein blue

approximating the hue the artist copyrighted

before his death at thirty-four.

It will cover 85 square feet at 1.17647058824 dollars

per square foot; 2.5 square feet for every year

of his brief life.

And now I am thinking that nobody has square feet

just like nobody has white skin.

Or black skin for that matter.

Though there are green-faced men in Homer

and in the comic books of my youth, some of whom

had eyes resembling ping-pong balls on stalks

much like the stomapods, also known as

mantis shrimp who, of all earthly creatures,

have the best sense of sight.

How drunk they must be

in their wine-dark sea

fathoming all those blues!