Kabir - The Unnameable - Version B Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

The name is: it alone is true:
and, since true, unutterable.
In it the distinction rests
between form and the formless.

The formless is seed, its form both
flower and fruit: knowledge the branch,
at whose heart the name, its root.

Seek to trace your own root within:
in its entirety stands your joy.
From it, your silent name, springs trunk
and branch and leaf and flower and fruit.

Here, the silent is sounded, audible
only without ears (by allowing
all wordless names to merge)
where form and the formless find balance.


Original poem by the 15thC mystical poet Kabir (Bk3.69) , translated by Rabindranath Tagore and Kshiti Mohan Sen (#80) . Versed by MMS 30/12/10