A poem about penguins for you

Read a poem today and instantly thought of you - it was Pablo Neruda's "Magellanic Penguin." Usually Neruda writes passionate love poetry (I can't wait to see what you think of it when you're older - much older, BTW!), so his penguin poem isn't particularly well known.

The reason it reminded me of you, of course, is because you really loved penguins after you turned five or so. I bought you toy figure penguins and a penguin stuffie; in fact, I think we even went to the Aquarium of the Pacific once just because I knew they'd have penguin stuffies there (Or did we get a stuffie seal pup there? I can't remember.). There also was a pegnuin video from the library that you really liked; one of the penguins was called Ringo, I think.

Anyway, here's the penguin poem:

Magellanic Penguin

Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
The mother smiles at the sailor,
the fisherman at the astronaunt,
but the child child does not smile
when he looks at the bird child,
and from the disorderly ocean
the immaculate passenger
emerges in snowy mourning.

I was without doubt the child bird
there in the cold archipelagoes
when it looked at me with its eyes,
with its ancient ocean eyes:
it had neither arms nor wings
but hard little oars
on its sides:
it was as old as the salt;
the age of moving water,
and it looked at me from its age:
since then I know I do not exist;
I am a worm in the sand.

the reasons for my respect
remained in the sand:
the religious bird
did not need to fly,
did not need to sing,
and through its form was visible
its wild soul bled salt:
as if a vein from the bitter sea
had been broken.

Penguin, static traveler,
deliberate priest of the cold,
I salute your vertical salt
and envy your plumed pride.

- Pablo Neruda