Cool Beans

Cool Beans
By Bobbi Rightmyer


If you come from Kentucky,
or any Southern state,
you know about the delicacy known to all as beans;
soup beans
kidney beans
navy beans
baked beans.
Try as I might, I never acquired the taste
for this healthy food of my parents and forefathers;
Kentucky pole beans
half runners
Roma flats
Blue Lakes.
Staples from the victory garden,
favored veggie of many home canners,
A bounty found in autumn
beneath the harvest moon.
Chili beans
red beans and rice
Lima beans, oh yuck;
recalling days I was made to clean my plate of these icky, mushy pods.
My taste runs more to sweeter beans –
okay, not veggies at all;
jelly beans and
vanilla beans and
coffee beans brewed on ice.
Occasionally I am tempted by a taco pizza with refried beans,
but Mexican jumping beans are really more my style,
pretty to look at instead of beans to taste;
And that’s really cool beans to me.