Ode to A French Butter Dish (with apologies to Keats)

Thou new unwrapped bride of distant Carre Four
Thou receptacle of sleek supple shape
O sylvan platter that canst now embrace
A brick more sweetly than dishes of yore.
What churn-ed history can your sheer width trace
Of pats, dollops and bricks neath yon domed pate?
From a land drenched in aubergine, grape-vines
Sweet porcine perfection and lore, what chance!
That lowly milk curdled belongs in the dance
And now, on wooden splendor reclines.

Tasted treats are sweet but those well slathered
Are sweeter still. Therefore ye cooks rage on!
Entice the sensual bud with glee
Whether blanc’d, emulsed, bernaised or ghee.
If but one spread for eternity rather’d
I, choose this cream, this fatted Don Juan.
“O happy fat! Most happy fat!” I utter.
Kept salted or un, cold hard or soft warm,
Twixt dough for the flaky or left intact form—
Fat is flavor flavor fat. None other truth. Truth, in butter.