LINK POETRY

How a kind word and a smile can change everything for the better

Maurice Spillane: Of Poetry Swindon

But the best is Emilie and colleagues in Choppers (A338 just after Burbage). Great food, reasonable prices, big smiles. On a cold, wet morning, that’s the place to be for breakfast. Here are a few stanzas from “Your Smile” which I composed there: comfortable as removing shoes by an open door.

Even the dog is laconic, still wants his walks, happy to jump in the stream but cringes when I unravel the hose. The garden paths are slippery, been on a list for weeks, but I’ve no energy to hose them while it’s raining. I could go on.

Then I enter a pub or shop or café and my mood is lifted by a lovely smile, such as the server in Lidl, Greenbridge, who smiled and said “follow me” when I couldn’t find batteries; the smiler in Phone Fixers who fixed my phone and wouldn’t charge me; the Brazilian barbers in Excellent Cut who like winter; the ushers in Empire Cinema who really, really want you to have a nice day.

The open and close of a café door, the lift of your eyes, and the soft rush to your smile like a great big magnet pulsing heartbeats, my adolescent blush.

I wonder what magic exudes such warmth, replicates your smile with another’s, does for the inconsequent, as www.mauricespillane.co.uk

I searched the Impressionists for such smiles but found few, perhaps Mona Lisa’s form blending the edge between colours in a soft transitional smile, but nothing of your warmth.

This is how we see ourselves and each other when we greet: Sunshine and open doors, dashed embargoes, opening teasers, all of these because of your smile, and more.