Smile

Art by Banksy

A smile! It’s such a simple thing -
a twitching of the lips.
Or far away, you may relay as
[Colon] [space] [ellipse]

A smile - it carries zero cost;
It’s free to give or get.
A cheaper gift that gives such lift?
I’ve not received one yet.

Try for me, this simple game
when walking down the street -
And passing by the passers-by
you don’t expect to meet:

Give them just a simple smile,
and you will surely see,
Your smile’s become contagious
through its reciprocity.

For if your smile creates two more
in just a minute’s time,
Then those two smiles will turn to four;
each minute it will climb.

And four will turn to eight and then
sixteen and thirty-two.
In just ten minutes, your smile elicits
one thousand to accrue!

For smile’s go viral and they spiral
out of your control;
And smiles can cover miles and miles
once they are on a roll.

And at this rate, what would it take
to make the whole world smile?
A month or two? A year might do?
It surely takes a while.

Would you believe it -- that you’d achieve it
by minute thirty three?
Your grin by then would grace the face
of all humanity

And best of all, as I recall,
you’d do it all for free.