The Claim of Speech

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.