Ok, the end of the semester is in 4 weeks and I'm starting to get a bit punchy and random. This is what happens when grad students' brains begin to atrophy from the unbridled joy of grading freshman comp papers. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I can't claim authorship over the following "ode" but I found it pretty hilarious. Enjoy...or maybe not.

"An Open Letter to Black Beans.

Dearest black beans,

I sing a song of your body electric, of your low-carb, high fiber, saintly virtue—free from the ungainly taint of trans and saturated fat.  I raise aloft a frothing flagon of mead to your delectable, slow-cooked goodness, demurely cloaked by only a slinky sprinkle of diced green onion.  Black beans, as you exude the erotic perfume of rosemary, oregano, garlic, and the occasional diced turkey sausage, I know that you must be mine, now and always.

But black beans, I am but a weak, profligate man; you must forgive my dalliances with split pea and lentil—those hussies mean nothing to me, black beans, and in their presence I could only pine the more for your warm, caraway-and-basil-infused embrace.

I know, black beans, that we met long ere our love blossomed.  As you coyly nestled within a Chipotle barbacoa, your charm remained safely stowed away from my obdurate gaze.  Overshadowed by braised beef, salsa, and guacamole, you eluded my childish, cloddish understanding.  But now, dear beans, I should come to you were you immersed in the foul turpitude that is a writhing mass of kidney beans!  Lima beans, even, I dare say!  I would rescue your gentle soul from the clutches of those slimy hags!

Black beans, there are some who will assail our love, deeming it a transgression, a monstrous miscegenation.  They will say that we sin against our respective heritages; they will wonder why I could not have loved white beans, or at least have tried to mask your Nubian splendor with dull, white saltines.  Black beans, pay them no heed—they do not understand that I love you not despite your blackness, but because of it; that your blackness embodies to me the very presence, the chaste embodiment, of presence and life itself.

How do I love thee, black beans?

Let me count the very ways."