Today I'd like you to raise your glass
For I've someone I'd like to toast.

Her hair curls like a corkscrew
And I've always been envious.
Exotic beauty shapes her eyes
And ears and lips and nose,
And I always wished I looked like her.
It isn't merely her looks I covet,
For she has a brain with intellect
That rivals the best rhetorician
From Plato to Hobbes to Sartre.
Pick any topic and she'll begin to debate
With practiced ease
Until the other's hand is thrown up
In plain defeat.
But it isn't just her forensic skills
That I wish to possess.
There is yet more to this curl topped girl.
Her heart is bigger than the world.
She loves with compassion
And sympathy
Like I've never witnessed before.
This is what I envy and covet the most,
For where her heart of gold lies,
Mirrored in me is just stone.

She may be younger in years
But she's always been a hero of mine.
And I hope I will continue to be in awe
As she shows the world
Who we all can strive to become.

To my sister.
Sláinte