Auroville, Beloved "Remembrance"

Those who departed the fields of Auroville

And scattered on the winds of a turning earth,

Who came at the call of a higher Force and Will

Attending the dream of a sacred city's birth

Are strangers now, their citizenship denied,

The internal passport with its Divine impress

Marked cancelled by the governing elite,

Expired and revoked, the past descried

As momentary phenomena, a stress

Of ephemeral value lost in forgotten years.

Those who knowing knelt before Her feet,

Souls who answered the Divine behest,

Bodies forged in a blaze of burning land -

Names we shall ever remember, ranks of the blest,

By Her presence on earth, touch of Her transforming hand,

Grace beyond description, transmuting our tears -

Are visitors now in their home of canopied trees

Who seeking the truth mid the commerce and interplay

Of mechanic attitudes and anomalies,

A collective of disparate dreams and hopes gone astray

Return to invoke Her name, to consecrate,

Renew the idyll upon this conscious soil

Upholding the charge to build a diviner state,

In this thrice-blessed land resume their godward toil.

O look to the children whose light-filled forms display

The godhead's sanction, house the resplendent Ray.

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Written towards the end of our stay in the Ashram and earlier in Auroville, at the beginning of the new millennium. Although the poem came as a stream beginning with the first line and ending with the last, it was preceded by certain experiences. Among these was the closing of Auroville to newcomers by the 'Entry Group', being informed of the 'Grace Period' of 5 years for Aurovilians who have left Auroville, after which they are no longer considered 'Aurovilians', the rampant commercialisation in Auroville, the planned destruction of dozens, perhaps hundreds of rare trees now 20-30 years old (which were planted in an area designated as the 'outer gardens') to build a lake; countered by the return of some of the first Aurovilians, their heroic work of past years, the love and joy of many Aurovilians, their quiet faith and devoted labour and the light in the eyes of the children.