Ms M. Arjuna Devi retired as the HOD of English, J.K.C.College, Guntur, A.P. Her Telugu poems and articles were published in Bharatiya Margam. She has written a book entitled Vedamu-Paramaanu Vignanamu, in collaboration with Dr S. Sivaram Babu.
73. The Beggarwoman
The parting day leaves the world dark
In the fading light,
The sad wrinkles ablaze with hunger
Moved me to helpless tears and anger
The lean moving corpse, left alone
To shake, groan and mourn
The shrunken caricature's sight
Reminds me the country's plight
Poverty her treasure
Loneliness her pleasure
The short silent shade smiles
And sooths the parches soul.
The dark unfathomable thoughts
Heave in the mind mute
In the world venomous, impure
Remains her destiny obscure.
74. Who Has Seen God?
Who has seen the face of God?
Neither you nor I nor anyone else-
But he is there in the clod of Earth
In the swinging plant, the smiling bud
The full-blown flowers, the whistling wind
The rolling sea and the drifting clouds.
He smiles in the smile of children
He blushes in the cheeks of the maiden
He labours with the plodding peasant
He is the tiger and the lamb
He is the destroyer and also the creator
Cosmos and yet the grain of sand.
He is in us and all around
We see him in a new-born babe
We know him in the mind of man
And feel Him in a woman's heart
And in the midst of Nature
For the soul of Man is God's abode.
Look here, you who seek for God
Know yourself and you know all!