Beware of the things you are giving your little daughter
Dollhouses or crayons?
Love or freedom?
Imagination, books?
Beware if it’s a book
Beware if she tucks it under her arm
And reads before going to sleep
Beware if she sneaks at midnight, flashing in hand
To read it under a blanket
Beware is she makes reading a serious business
Because a girl who reads
Becomes a woman who thinks
Inside and outside notions
The circles you had drawn with pale chalks
she has already tread across
Unknowingly,
Engrossed in a book
Poem by Minerva Sarma; Image by Aakriti Kuntal
