I raise my pen
here once again*,
invite you in...
Come on a splen-
did new adven-
ture: books as friends;
worlds without end.
From noisome fen
to Elvish glen,
from tenement
to cozy den.
From confluence
to monuments,
from Orient
to Occident.
my brilliant friend,
Vorkosigan,
or Tolkien,
Miss Peregrine,
and Hiassen**,
Cordelia Jen-
sen, and Le Guin***,
Mysterious Ben-
edict and Pen-
derwicks, Huck Finn,
Rick Riordan**.
Expand your ken
with panda Zen,
and Where (or when!)
the Sidewalk Ends,
dak, Kevin Hen-
kes, and Hans
Christian Andersen.
Come once, and then
come back again,
and you can say
you knew us when!
To you, our friends,
our denizens,
to you we send
our compliments.
You surely are
our oxygen;
we hope we lend
you nourishment.
The store is ten!
Some say Amen.
Some shout, Again!
We thank you.
-Jen
*Please also enjoy a previous birthday poem from back when we were very young.****
**I have just learned that Carl Hiassen and Rick Riordan both pronounce their names with a stressed long-i in the first syllable. I did not know.
***Okay, so words like "in" and "Le Guin" don't actually rhyme with "ten" in my dialect; there's some, um, poetic license at work here. However, I do know some people with the appropriate vowel mergers, for whom this whole thing ought to rhyme perfectly. Almost perfectly. Better, anyway.
****And may I point out that the 2009 version was also posted (and celebrated) on Saturday, November 21...?
