The Unnameable

a free version of Kabir’s poem 3/69

The Name that can’t be uttered is unique.

How then to comprehend the formless?

What name for a circle with no circumference,
or a square with no corners?

Name reflects form: form defines name.

Forms yield clarity: clarity amplifies form.

Duality and form have propagated the world:
yet the Name is within all.

The formless is seed: its fruit is form:
knowledge the branches: the Name a hidden root.

Throu form seek the formless:
within duality conceive unity.

Within the winter trunk nestles the summer leaf:
cause and effect being rarely linear.
Spirit is not in root alone, nor flower,

nor in the vital sap – yet life is within all.

Everywhere pleasure lies. Happiness 

lies nowhere but in your unNameable root.

Seek where you are fertile, resolve your nature:

in each upheaval see growth husbanding you.


The unspelled Name pervades all matter:

yet is visible only by a beating heart.

Encountering the Name transcends language:

yet is known only by a beating heart.

The resolution of this paradox ends all enquiry:
yet the Name can be uttered only by a beating heart.