The Pretend-Mendicant Poem by Raj Arumugam

Death is the pretend-mendicant -
stays outdoors, outside the house
outside the body-bones

Death is the patient beggar
playing a violin-song a lifetime
that one does not hear till the moment

Death is the figure in the shadows
not seen but by the beloved
in that instant

Patience and a sense of timing
mark Death, coming
one step at a time, or in one leap

Till the end when an empty skull
is thrust forward to one
Till one deposits the alm in the bowl

one does not see Death's hollows