When I came to this world
Born I was a free bird,
There was worry nor let,
Easy my needs were met.

To my wish world to greet
God gave me eyes and feet,
To my wish world to hear
He gave two that I hear clear.

E’er since birth hungry I ne’er went—
A pair of breast-full milk he sent,
When my food habits gained a width,
He filled my mouth with pearly teeth.

Yet, a grown up I learned to beg,
What ere was my barest of need
Now grew into greatest of greed,
My prayers were means Him to nag.

Aspirations wallowing into wants,
And wants willowing as if wanton weeds,
And my dreams were a den of daunting haunts,
My prayers sounding like a pauper’s pleads.

He sent me to celebrate blissful joy,
But look what am I? But a beggar boy!
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A new born has only basic needs, which
God meets fully and without asking. But as
the man grows old his needs turn into wants,
and then yearnings and desires like wanton
weeds. Symbolically this is reflected in
syllables used in a line. The poem starts
with six to a line, that grows to eight,
and then ten. Man’s prayers are now pleads,
his needs are now bordering on greed and he
becomes a beggar boy.
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- Reflections | 09.09.07 |

Aniruddha Pathak

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-beggar-boy/