Ode to Butter

Eating butter makes the heartbeat strong.

Eating butter lubricates the soul

so that it slips smoothly from one

lifetime to the next.

I'm not talking about the ghee

of refinement and discipline,

but the effortless grace of honest tallow,

the russet wealth of your buttocks.

Philosophers eat the clarified stuff

but poet-saints like Lala Dev

who burn thousands of calories just

chanting Shiva’s name

need stamina to dance

naked in the streets: they drench

their waffles in the real thing.

Even infant Krishna was a butter thief!

The saints gaze down with envy

at your honey-brown pancakes

dripping with cow nectar.

The hills and valleys

of your breasts and thighs

glow round and warm with butterfat,

making gods yearn to come home

and take birth on this world again.

Your flesh doesn't get this way

by chance, my friend, but by feasting!

Those who cook with butter
may not live as long,
but those who don’t won't live at all.

Exercise moderation.
Let’s not get carried away.

Just spread a little on everything.

I don't speak in the language of angels.

I churn those lofty abstractions 
into gold.