Der Karneval der Tiere

The animals are celebrating the carnival in the jungle, and everyone has come along: lions, elephants, turtles, kangaroos – but also donkeys, chickens, fish, the beautiful swan and many more. There's music and dancing and lots of tricks. So there's bound to be plenty of entertainment when the animals celebrate the carnival!

Remember the big elephant
(he is an uncle of an aunt),
the great, big, heavy one, you know,
who always wobbles to and fro.

He asked me specially to greet
the boys and girls, and with his feet
wrote carefully upon the sand:
"Much love to Gretchen Windelband."

This may seem very strange to you -
for elephants that's hard to do.
Such tricks are rare among these mammals,
much rarer than among the camels.

Christian Morgenstern (translation by Max Knight)