You Shall Not Fathom Love Poem by Asad Ali

You Shall Not Fathom Love

You shall not fathom even the faintest thread of love—
Not if you were to gather every tale ever inked beneath the trembling quill of longing,
Nor if you collected each breathless whisper that once fled the trembling lips of destiny,
Nor if you conversed with lovers undone, beloveds vanished,
Or with the ever-aching chorus of onlookers—
Those eternal spectators exiled from the sanctum of true love.

You shall not grasp even the softest shimmer of its light.
For love is no enigma—
Yet it unravels the very loom upon which mysteries are woven.
It is no riddle—
And yet it defies the most luminous intellects,
Cracking the polished mirrors of reason like thunder over still water.
It is not God—
Yet is there a single divine note that love does not echo,
A single heavenly hue it does not reflect?

You shall not know even the barest ember of its fire.
No courtesan is profane enough,
No chalice of wine heady enough,
To soil the sanctity of love.
No desert is vast enough,
No abyss so deep,
That its majesty may be hidden.

Among the broken-hearted,
The weary,
The wanderers beneath indifferent skies—
Love waltzes like a flame among ruins,
A luminous, untamed testament
That somewhere, God still lives.

— Asad Ali