Art Print with accompanying poem. Approx 60 x 40 cm
 
Summer sun is hotter than before, especially for me.
I cannot go around the city any more as I did when I was young.
Age and heat make me so easily tired.
Now I must sit and beg in a place where many people are passing by.
But I do not get as much money as before.
Sometimes, I get just enough to buy rice.
I try to be satisfied with whatever I get.
I must happily eat any food that appears on my plate.
I must sleep well anywhere I can find to lie down.
I do not have a home.
I do not have any papers. No one offers to help… ever.
.
“Beautiful Burma”… … sometimes I hear that from the radio.
 It sounds funny.
Burma is beautiful… but not for everybody.
It is beautiful only for a few.
The well connected can do anything, and become rich.
Most people are poor.
The young and the energetic and the educated find it difficult to live.
So… an old woman like me… what can I do?
How can I hope to survive?
.
When I was a child, I never thought that my life would be spent begging.
Who want to become a beggar?
No one wants to be that… I do not want to be, either.
I think… a main reason I became a beggar is that I was born in Burma, where cruel people govern.
 
Words by Maung Maung Tinn, artist
 
Price includes postage and packing.