smile collection

I started a smile collection
 When I was in college,
 At the end of my second term;
Smiles were rare by that time in my country,
 Where nobody wore a smile as a uniform.

I tried to put them down on paper,
 But all my attempts would fail,
And all I finally did with my specimens was grade them by Richter scale.

I didn’t expect to come upon
 A smile that was out of that range,
More like a phase transition that made the whole of the person change.

We’d just started on phase transitions then, but I must have been a quick learner,
I could sense it from way behind me or ‘round the corner,
I knew it by sound, too –
 It made the bland voice grow thicker
And gave it a velvet feel, as glycerol does to liquor.

I’ve learnt every single factor contributing to that smile –
Little children,
People talking sense,
 Or better yet, people showing up after having been absent for quite a while.

That was the end of all my collection, since I got so occupied
With one smile, unconventional
 As a halo around the moon on a frosty night;
Well, the halo I’ve only seen once
 Many years ago, but it left me stunned,
And so did a smile that was not on the face but almost six feet beyond…


…You may not recognize it by this description -
 Everything’s in the eyes that behold,
But I still can’t think of the one to beat it,
 Save for toothless grins from my two-month-old.