the insignificance of the shepherds by Lucy Bryan

what’s biblical but the blues?

the insignificance of shepherds

by Lucy Bryan¹

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after The Adoration of Shepherds - Giorgione 

          “Ultramarine blue is a colour illustrious, beautiful, and most perfect, beyond all
            other colours; one could not say anything about it or do anything with it, that its
            quality would not still surpass.” — Cennini

when
divinity does not lie
in oiled folds
of skin or angelled
babies hovering, and
does not sink
in the distance or
the hills biting
back horizons—what’s biblical
but the blues? that have been
laced with arsenic? that can
pull a heart out
through a stomach? so rich
they reek
of home and
make sailors sick
for it? what is left
after learning
what it means
to leave? what use
is worship when
seeing hurts twice
as badly as never
having seen?

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1. https://www.nga.gov/artworks/432-adoration-shepherds