VEGGIE TRAVAILS

Ode to Kale

A happy tale from the fan mail

Oh Kale.

Why they tell their fairytale? They want to put you in jail, Kale —

Convince the world you’re an epic fail. A cardboard nausea cocktail.

They want me to short-sale you, Kale. Throw you to the dogs. Spit you like a hangnail from my bedrail.

I wouldn’t bail on you, Kale. I’d regale you with stories from Gmail and my time at Yale. Show off your curls next to fillet of blue whale and sauteed snail.

All they do is wail, and it’s getting stale. Old wives’ tales. Or maybe blackmail.

We must curtail this full-scale resale of tall tales!

I will countervail. Spread the word you’re Chippendale of the Greens — such muscular nutrition waiting to be unveiled. You are not small-scale. You are for male and female.

Kale, we must detail for eaters frail — you are the nutrient Holy Grail. The more of us who tell, the wider the inhale of these truths, the sooner you prevail. It’s an economy of scale.

I don’t mean to tattletale on these naysayers. They know not of what they quail. I simply want dark green love to dovetail. For folks to pair you, Kale, with lobster tail and ale. To discuss you on the monorail and horse trails. To study you at Hillsdale. To serve you at meals in Clarksdale and Ferndale, Scottsdale and Glendale. To carry you in lunch pails.

Your haters’ ire is telltale, Kale. It’s misplaced confusion. Too much food from which to choose — they equate you with their ails and bewail. I’ve seen this before. It’s the hobnail of fruit cocktails trying to derail. A stick-it-to-you flail.

I will not. I will avail myself of you, Kale, and all that entails. I will buy you in bales wholesale. I’ll munch you and sip wassail and enjoy fried fishtails. I say, All Hail the Kale!

The editing from these two was of logarithmic scale — Andrew Rodwin and T. Kent Jones.

This kale hail comes on the coattails of this kale wail.

Now you can exhale and read these tales I found at the rummage sale.

And would you just take a look at this?!