Smiles

I have traveled the earth
for miles and miles,
and found things little worth
warm friendly smiles.

Over strange foreign lands
by great lakes and deep seas,
always are welcoming hands
with kind smiles to please.

It's the language of the universe
be you brown black or white,
and translates in rhyming verse
in bright day and dark night.

For a smile is sweetly made
of understanding so kind,
seeking congenial trade
and can be seen by the blind.

It's an offering of friendship
and most pleasing to own,
for both strangers and kinship
and to grow must be sown.

In the heart it begins
and can vanquish a fear,
with wide happy grins
stretching from ear to ear.

And if all the vast world
were offered to me,
not all its glittering gold
is more precious to see.