Arrived in Deutschland

Liebe Freunden,

We love our apartment; we love our ward; we love Berlin! We do not, however, love the effects of jet lag on Justin (mild case of the flu) or on the girls (6 hour night of sleep at best, and that not straight through). But we're holding together!

So, with our minutes of potential sleep creeping away, we post only three poems that Justin composed on the plane ride. (The girls were amazing on the plane and the public transportation shenanigans we enacted to get to our apartment, by the way, so we're mostly forgiving them for not sleeping well.)

The Birthday Girl

The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!
My precious, gleaming birthday pearl,
Whose banner proudly we unfurl
The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!

The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!
Her thick hair shines without a curl
Her graceful movements swirl and swirl
The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!

The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!
A stone she'll toss, a spear she'll hurl
Better than Prince, or Duke, or Earl
The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!

The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!
She'll dance, she'll leap, she'll spin, she'll whirl--
In town or up country, urban or rural--
The Birthday Girl, The Birthday Girl!

For Julia's 7th Birthday
June 2011
Love, Daddy

My Eli

My Eli, she's as wild as a tiger on the loose,
My Eli, she's as goofy as a gander with no goose.
My Eli, she's ferocious like a lion on the prowl;
My Eli, she's precocious like a wolf-cub set to howl.
My Eli, she's courageous like a she-bear with her cub;
My Eli, she's outrageous like three rhinos in one tub.
My Eli, she's as cuddly as a kitten with no claws;
My Eli, she's as playful as a pup with satin paws.

My Eli, she's as funny as hyenas when they laugh;
My Eli, she's as grumpy as the cows are when they calf.
My Eli, she's sagacious like the owl who rules the night;
My Eli, she's loquacious like the crow who squeaks mid-flight.
My Eli, she's creative like a poet with his quill
My Eli's meditative-like a sage, pensive by the window sill.
My Eli's all the best that's ors-, bov-, fel-, or leonine--
But best of all, she's four feet tall...No! Best of all, she's mine.

84 Trumbull Street

All things split too neatly in this divided town
By learning, race, or income--
Up Science Hill, or down.

The Ivy and the Ghetto
The future and the past,
The upper and the lower crust
The top and bottom caste.

But here at eight-four Trumbull
These lines are rudely crossed;
And here around this altar,
Distinctions dimmed and lost.

All were there God's children--
Of poor and rich were none.
Not Yale and not New Haven--
No, He called His people Zion.