The Secretion of Value

A few centuries more than four thousand
Years ago, the palatial Minoans
In the eastern Mediterranean

Had figured out how to get trace amounts
Of colorfast purple dye from the glands
Of sea snails. Rarity, difficulty,

Hierarchy, and beauty spell luxury.
Purple became a symbol of power.
Several centuries later, Phoenicians

Around Tyre had cornered the dye market,
Boiling up and drying dye-murex snails,
One per drop of purple or azure stain.

A few more centuries, three thousand years
Ago, give or take, Israelites seized
One dye factory, built a wall around it,

Decorated their temple with the dyes,
And filled Holy Writ with mentions of it.
Assyrians overran everything

And Babylonians overran them,
And so forth and so on. Millenniums
Of purple ruled by sumptuary laws,

As the massive snail middens grew.
Just archaeology and history now,
And puzzled children reading the Bible

Now and then in American churches
Bemused by the holiness of purple,
Which is fun but just another color.