The fire that has no shape

What do you carry in your heart's bundle?
A lineage?
A doctrine?
A fear?
Cast them into the fire—
that has no shape,
but still gives light.
There is a music that unbinds.
Not heard by ears,
but by the aching in your marrow.
It is sung by those who have shed skin
after skin,
until only breath remained,
hovering between two worlds—
neither dead,
nor alive,
only becoming.
The divine does not wear a crown,
nor sit upon a throne.
It stirs
where your silence deepens beyond thought,
where your hands tremble
before a stranger's wound.
It flickers
in the sweat of labour,
in the tear withheld for dignity's sake.
It hums
in the cracked voice of longing,
in the tremor
before you choose love again.
It is not far.
It leans close
where you kneel in grief,
where you dance without name,
where you burn,
and still offer light.
So do not call me brother by blood,
nor enemy by script.
Call me by the soundless name
we shared
before the stars spoke of our fates.
That name still glows
in the ashes of your forgetting.
Come.
Unrobe your mind.
Let the fire take your shape.
And in its smoke,
you may see the formless Beloved
smiling back—
as you.

Bipra Prasun Das is a student at North South University.