Recipe for Cobalt Blue

                   1.
Skim the top three feet off the Pacific,
reserving it in a very large container.
Strain the water of fish, whales,
plankton, algae, flotsam, jetsam. 
Return all life to the ocean.
Discard the flotsam and jetsam.
Pour the Pacific
into Mount Kilauea's caldera.
Reduce over high lava to two gallons.
Scoop the resulting thick blue
Essence of Ocean
into a polished obsidian crucible.

                   2.
With a mortar and pestle,
crush a thousand carats of sapphire.
Add the resulting blue glitter
to the crucible.

Note:  Due to the hardness of sapphires,
a ceramic mortar and pestle will not suffice --
titanium, tungsten, or diamond is recommended.
 
                   3.
Gently drop two pounds of iris petals
into a cauldron filled
with unfiltered mountain rainwater.
Place the cauldron in the hot summer sun
until the liquid has evaporated to one cup.
Carefully remove the petals and pour
the remaining iris tea into the crucible.

                   4.
Peel the skins from three hundred pounds
of concord grapes.
Press the skins through a filter.
Reduce the juice over high heat to three cups.
Pour the grape extract into the crucible.

                   5.
From a Himalayan mountaintop,
photograph the sky on a glass plate
coated with blue-sensitive emulsion.
Develop the plate and set aside.

Note:  Do not use photographic paper
for this step.  Only glass plates will do.

                   6.
Place ten pounds of fine, white 
Caribbean sand into the crucible.
Add one pound of black lava sand for depth.
Lower the crucible
into Mount Kilauea's lava pool
and heat to two thousand degrees
or until the sand melts.
Raise the crucible.
Add the previously reserved sky plate
to the molten mixture.
Return the crucible to the lava pool
for another hour.

                   7.
Choose a ceramic vase mold,
approximately three feet tall,
one foot in diameter.
Pour the contents of the crucible into the mold.
Anneal the glass patiently
to ward off brittleness.

                   8.
Carefully remove the cooled vase.
Buff smooth of bumps or ridges.
Place the vase on a pedestal
in bright sunlight.

                   9.
Stare into the Universe
through cobalt blue.

Scott Speck
02/06/2000