Gracious Glance Of Innocence Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

Just snowed winter afternoon
Post-thanksgiving sales
Attractive less expensive shopping
My wife, our son and I
In one of the big retailers of US
Tired of this buying spree
I found a place to sit close to the entrance
And watched the people shopping

Entered a stroller
Holding an infant
Well protected
With a toy nipple in the mouth

I could make out
It was a baby girl
Very cute
Looking around with her
Inquisitive eyes
That had a grace

It occurred so
That I was in her focus
When her stroller passed beside me
Within a metre or so

Her mother was moving around
Things displayed in that side of the shop
And I was in the field her sight
During most of the time
Of her mother’s shopping

The first glance of the kid
Was telling me
“My glance by itself auspicious
Can make glanced at things
Auspicious too”

The second glance of hers
Which struck me
Beneath a displayed pink gown
Told me
“My glance, you know,
Can free you from all bonds,
If you are a person
Seeking that path.
My glance, at the same time,
Can grant worldly pleasures too,
If you are after them”

Her third glance
After a hide through a pillar
Revealed to me
“My glance has the power
To clear all your doubts
And to shatter
Your negative mind-set,
So that you ever remain confident”

As the infant was
Going out of shop
Her glance had a message
“My glance can purify you
And wash off all your sins
And dirt of your previous actions.
Do not you realise now
The power of
The gracious glance of innocence”

(A modified rewrite of Adi Sankara's meaning of one of the thousand names of Lord Vishnu)