Bible-black

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

The sky was Bible black in Lyon / When I met the Magdalene / She was paralysed in a streetlight / She refused to give her name

A little further along the coast, watched by lines of Bible-black cormorants, a monument was unveiled in 2022 commemorating Chile's role in returning Shackleton and his men to Punta Arenas: next to a section of hull from the good ship Yelcho is a statue of its captain, Luis Pardo, pointing southwards out to sea.

Once used to describe the intense black of a starless night in Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Bible Black is an inky violet shade that adds richness and depth to any feature, inside or out.