A child on the sea shore
had collected good lot of beautiful stones
Some sea shells and some conks
I wanted to trade a few
And did not know what to offer
In exchange,
So I asked, will she give me the red one
She said what will I offer
I asked her choice
And she asked my spectacles
But why,
did not she know
She had beautiful eyes
And I had weak eyes,
Why will she need spectacles
But then I understood, she wanted the look
Of spectacles
I asked he, if she wanted to look older
Than her age,
She smiled, may be, is wisdom a sign of age
I wish I could tell her, it is not
We went to an optician
Requested for her plain glasses,
And by then I thought
she would have forgotten about the red stone
but she had not
only that she offered all her stones now
and I had enjoyed so much her questions
Cynical comments and
the women like jumbled up relationships
between things,
unrelated things connected in ways
I was not used to,
I did not want trade to symbolize our exchange
But she would not have any of my emotional crap
One could give things
Yes, gift her things only at her terms
And I had to take the red stone
But also the beautiful green stone, shells
And the rest
Why had every thing become so reasonable
Why had glasses look so good to her
Had I already taken away her innocence
By teaching her trade
