Poems of Narad

We Have Shared a Grace

O emptiness "€œ where once a heart had stood
Young and glowing in the joy of youth,
Of one who lived within, deep within
And heroically faced the demons of the night,
Who found, leaving all the world behind,
This world of satisfaction and of ease,
At the far end of our spinning earth
One whom her longing soul would recognize,
The Mother of all sorrow and all joy
Whose holocaust still shall save the world.

Her soul led, the body acquiesced
And all the deep refinement of her birth
Was cast into the poverty and filth
Of suffering too deep to comprehend
And hopelessness the West had never seen.
Her spirit overwhelmed by death and pain
Returned again to live on safer shores
Awhile but then the call grew stronger still,
The Mother's smile, the sacred Ashram's peace
And then the day that Auroville was born.

Difficult and painful were the years
Of bare necessity, the torrid heat,
The illnesses and dangers of the way
She faced with calm goodwill, the soul's resolve.
Birth and the first twelve years of hard-won growth
And forces clashing, truth and falsehood mixed,
Those who yearned for power and control,
At every step a treachery that slayed
The spirit that would soar, the love She poured
Upon the bare eroded soil, the human core

That laboured in the cauldron of the days
Towards unity that often met defeat
In evil's den, fanaticism's field,
Or apathy, distrust and ignorance.
Of Mother's love, the vision that She gave
Of earth reborn to divinity
A city of peace and human unity,
A oneness embracing all diversity,
This hallowed land, chosen by the Lord,
To be the final refuge of the world.

When evil reigned the Mother's child returned
To work within the country of her birth,
A deeper plunge of self to find her Lord
In the still and silent place behind the heart.
And all the flowers she had loved and grown
Became her field of work, a loving toil,
For all her labour towards perfection grew
In compass of the spirit's harmony.
I know God's hand has led us all our days
And slowly consciousness and vision grew

And gratitude for many lifetimes led.
The deeper joys that sorrow could not taint
Nor cancer and the ultimate decree
Of weeks, then months, the surgeons knew
That barring miracle no chance remained.
Astonished when the miracle occurred
And months stretched into years, the time of God
Allowed for us to deeper seek His peace
And open to the kingdom of the Light
Commit our lives to tread the golden path.

So fearlessly she braced the dread disease
Her discipline a model to be seen,
A faith unshaken even in the pain
That came so suddenly, so swift, so fierce.
Another bond was formed between two souls,
A union of the spirit joined in love,
That would endure through all eternity,
The turning of the endless wheel of time.
As often in our home I held her close
And on her final day I sat by her

Reciting the mantras of our chosen way.
The words we spoke, the holiness we shared
Shall sing through all the births in years to come,
For we are Hers and steadily the soul
Grows closer to the sun of its desire.
The body is no more, yet she lives on,
Her spirit to find rest in higher spheres,
And I though now most empty, most alone
In grief I must allow to have its day,
I stand aside a witness of myself

To glean from sorrow's fields the grains of calm,
Prepare my soil to nurture heaven's balm,
To yield to sun and rain and not despair
Of storm or drought, all things to bear
In peace and gratitude, the Way is found,
For God has marked the earth His sacred ground
And in our midst there lives a higher kind
Recipients of the golden Supermind.
And we have shared a Grace so pure, so sweet
That surely will return us to Their Feet.