The Singular Beggar-Woman Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

The sad rays on her face
laid bare her covert grief at heart,
and her eyes had lost the glint.
" What bad luck brought you hither
to beg before the temple? ", he said.
"No one gives me work in my age
and no child or husband to prop me.
The alms I get, is not to warm my body;
every penny you give, goes to charity",
she said with a loud, confident voice.

"Take this bag full of money and gold
to feed you well and feed others.
Don't sit in rain and shine
to gain some coins of sin-stained souls",
he muttered and strutted away.
"Tell me who you are to please my soul",
She asked and ran behind him.
" I'm none but breeze to sway the rose",
after fifty years, just to see your face.

The lady in bewilderment got back
Into her tumultuous youth and cried:
"Siva! Siva! ", her voice echoed
from all the walls of the earth.
Her Siva of her youth, who trespassed
Into her heart for the first,
was no more to hear her words.