the word for gray

I was astonished to discover that the Roman language contains no word for the colour gray. Almost as astonished as to learn the Masai in Africa have no word for please... but many words for thank you.


The Word for Gray

The Romans had no word for gray.
What must they have thought, then
of British skies and endless clouds
the dark Atlantic foaming at the shores
Browns for mud
and songs of green --
so many greens, beneath the raining skies.
Stonehenge and her cohorts
standing across Europe
in unlikely fields --
bluestones, yes, and white cliffs...

What did they call the horses
dappled in the fields, aging into white
but strong with their youth and galloping hooves,
no longer black, not yet white.

Romans had no word for gray.
Did they, like the Inuit, have
27 words for blue?
100 more for green?
a score of browns?

Or did they trail sentences
into layer upon layer of adjective,
simile...
Was ocean the colour of Caesar's eyes
where it lapped the English beach?
Dark seas rolling under stark white cliffs,
the colour of hair piled high on Caesar's wife?

Was justice always black or white?
Or were the skies in Rome such endless blue,
and all our grays turned silver?