They say, It was a colour Michaelangelo couldn’t afford
And Vermeer loved enough to put his family under debt

The ultimate blue,

The blue to which aspired all other hues
Sourced from the mountains of Afghanistan

One grounded lapis lazuli into a fine powder

Infused it with melted sighs, wax, oils, pine resin

and kneaded it in dreams and diluted lye solution
Only then the ultramarine would come true

Brimming with minerals, riddled with puzzles

No two dabs the same, 

no two angles showing the exact same hue
All that is gone now

Now it is just another colour in the palette

A hundred percent pure hue

Available in a synthetic tube

No wonder its sharpness stings the eye

And Michaelangelo looks down and cries

Because when we dissected it, synthesised it, batch-produced it

We also took away its impurities, imperfections, individuality
Dear heart,

Let my love be not too pure a love

Let it have a doubt of green in it, a folly of yellow, a stab of red

Let it be the ultramarine of an age gone by

Full of imperfections, inconsistencies, a thousand blues in a single hue

But to itself, only true

-adee, first drafted on June 09, 2015. Inspired by an article i read online, the practical details are by the original author, i’ve taken some liberties with emotions.