Sonnet As Soft Form
by Jane Huffman
You cannot make a show of it:
sadness as gazing ball (i.e., garden
globe, lawn orb.)
I had sadness by the short hairs,
loved the proverbial much-older
man, in image and idea.
The image: the tin roof, the heat.
The idea: the cat.
In other words, there’s the cowboy,
there’s the sadness of the land,
and then there’s the cow—
The current fad of endless TV shows, Netlfix series and movies that present a vision of a dystopian future where the environment, economy and society have devolved into chaos may feel somewhat new, but that fad cycles every couple of decades. When I was a kid, Charleston Heston took a couple of star turns in the Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes where the future looked pretty bleak. hop Soylent Green in particular made quite an impression on me, the idea of food scarcity being hidden beneath a vast government conspiracy to cover up where the latest juicy vittles to feed a starving mankind truly originated gave me the eebie-jeebies rather than a good scare.
It’s why I am very skeptical about the prospects for success for companies developing “cultured” meat and fish. What is “cultured” meat? Its not plant based substitutes which I think is a great idea, but are companies that are figuring out ways to reproduce beef, pork and fish cells in a cell culture to produce meat without an animal. The pitch is going to be these are safer – no e-coli to contend with, better for the environment, no cows giving off methane gas and less pressure on limited fishing reserves in the ocean, and more humane, no actual animals being killed and processed for human consumption. But something doesn’t feel right about it. Its a little too close to science fiction for my taste. Besides, without the cow, what are cowgirls and cowboys going to do?
Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
. For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
. For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
. Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
. And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
, Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
. With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
. Praise him.
Fourteen Lines 