To Mary Helen ---

The Soul in Gratitude Reflecting

Nov. 22, 1999

Prayers not for self but for the tender soul

Who sweetly through the years companions me

Through nights of pain and sorrow, days of joy

On all the cherished avenues of life.

We have travelled through the gardens of the world

Seeking flowers for the golden shrine

In Auroville where the soil in silence waits

To hold the symbols of Love and Consciousness,

And Youth attending Power, Light and Bliss.

Red earth sun-baked, barren, denuded and dead

Or so it seemed to all but the pioneers

Who through the aspiration of their lives

Have called the blossoms forth and forested

The abandoned fields, renewing life and self.

A delicate soul of indescribable strength

For the first twelve years planting at my side

The seeds of the future's flowering harmony.

When alone in the silence of my spirit reflecting

On the Grace and love enveloping our lives

The heart is hushed, the soul in gratitude

Remembers and offers, in consecration renewed.