Vicki Hearne

To pass over in silence Is to acknowledge logic, The necessity of form, The stunning curve of language, The curious way it seems To turn out that “love” means “need” Even in a lush garden. To pass over the Red Sea Or your bounty—so long as True silence and not some tense Paralysis of the false Is achieved—then Passover Is always a charity, The painted fish in the blue Water turns to their own colors. To pass over in silence Is to acknowledge you if This chatter dissolve as it Will in the marvelous sky.

We must stop bragging. There are limits For us to the cold and the twelfth night Marks them all. Just off the coast of Maine The lobster boats pass, dragging their nets. Capsize once in a while, in water Like that you die, that’s all, that water Isn’t even frozen. Not even Frozen, and that’s as cold as it gets. The hearts of birds beat voraciously So they keep warm, so if you put out A feeder, keep it full of the seeds Their hearts feed on, then it is only When their food runs out that you find them Inexpressibly taut in hollows, And that’s as cold as it ever gets.

for Stanley Cavell I Must we mean what we say? Stick to it, Be bound to, chained up beside the house, Teased by boys on bicycles, fireflies, The seasons as they pass out of reach? We could try meaning nothing, a way Favored in the brightest corridors By those who pass from life to death through Halls of learning and replace marriage With justice. To mean nothing is to Have nothing at heart, to be chained up To the right of and a bit behind The body: without marriage, justice Prevails as the clenched hand of culture On the most brutal bridle prevails Against the motion beneath that wants To claim the hand of culture. Against The Horse in the horse, the Rider in The rider, the heart beneath the tongue. II In the anarchies of the sensuous Hands the order of love is leaping. In a far corner of the landscape A lover’s hands leap in the skin’s light, And heroes’ hands lap like tongues on necks Curved with significance. The horses Stamp and whinny, hint of caprioles As urgently as our mute souls And it is impossible to mean Anything but motion. A dispatch From the graceful landscape will arrive: “He must be told.” Lovers will obey Thus leaving terror and time alone To fend for themselves. I will obey, Am obeying now, making poems From chains, leaving the season alone— You must be told(already your horse Leaps beneath you!)what you meant to say.

The sudden thuck of landing The arrow made in the mark Of the center lifted and Loosened his skin. And so he Stood, hearing it like many Thrusting breaths driven to ground. He abandoned the long light Flight of arrows and the slow Parabolas bows dream of For the swifter song beyond Flesh. Song of moments. The earth Turned its molten balance. He stood hearing it again: The precise shudder the arrow Sought and returned to, flaming.