University of Northern Iowa

The BuffaloAuthor(s): Peter WildSource: The North American Review, Vol. 257, No. 3 (Fall, 1972), p. 45Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117366 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:09

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The NorthAmerican Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:09:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

-I'm on the ground. They didn't get the mike ....

Something's wrong with my leg ... .

People are all around

me, fighting ....

My breast hurts. Feels like a corkscrew

.... Oh, I can't move. I can't . . . When are the police

going to get to me? ... I see them! They're . . .

they're

beating everybody. People are running from the clubs.

Somebody's tripped over me. His head's a mess. Clots of

dirt and blood .... NO! OFFICER! FM NOT DOING

_Ugghhh. ?Come on, sweetheart.... Nice little ass you got there.

Put a bag

over your head.... How's that feel, sweetheart?

Like to feel his big brother?

A car door slams, and there is only the sound of con

tented breathing.

******

e account of the incident which appeared in our little

metropolis newspaper thirty-five miles down the road ran as

follows:

Seventeen persons were arrested yesterday when police were

called onto the university campus to quell a disturbance involving several hundred students. After students ignored orders to dis

perse, the police moved in to prevent further injuries. Forty-six

persons, including several police officers, received medical treat

ment at the university hospital for wounds resulting from rocks and bottles hurled by students. Fifteen were hospitalized.

Among those hospitalized was Miss Inez Lumpkin, a graduate student in English and the alleged instigator of the disturbance.

She is quoted as having shouted, "Off the fascist pigs, "

when the

police arrived on the scene. According to witnesses, she had

been previously quoting North Vietnamese propaganda.

According to a university official, who has requested

anonymity, Miss Lumpkin is a member of a hippie love-cult

resembling the cult of Charles Manson, the California mass

murderer, who has been sentenced with three others to die in the

gas chamber. "We have evidence that Miss Lumpkin was at the time of her

arrest conspiring with a goon-squad of outsiders smuggled on the

campus for that purpose to take over the Humanities and Social

Science buildings and rename them Happiness U., "

the official stated.

Miss Lumpkin has been suspended from the university. She is

charged with disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, inciting to riot, and conspiring to commit a felony. She is

being treated at the university hospital for a leg fracture and

head injuries received from a rock thrown by an unidentified

student, according to police authorities. She will be transferred to the county jail to await trial upon her release from the

hospital Bond has been set at $75,000. When asked what her next move would be, Miss Lumpkin

replied, "Any of several things. The possibilities are infinite. "

1 he possibilities are infinite, Inez. Once out of the dark woods of justice, you could join in a conspiracy to trans

form Humanities and Social Sciences into Happiness U. You could seek out the boy who would be happy to stick his six inches up your gigi. You could weave bright rugs with arabesque designs to hang over your kitchen windows. You could play hopscotch on the university walks. You could wend your way to North Vietnam and volunteer to be Hanoi Hannah. Or you could finish your doctoral dis sertation on the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Take your pick.

Th

PETER WILD

THE BUFFALO

I have opened my eyes a thousand times

to the sound of falling snow, like a puppy born

to light, and seen the buffalo falling, a rainbow in cascade over the cartilaginous brow

of a cloud moving across the land

and my ears opened,

new wax

to the pleasant music of their

floating down, stiff-legged

howling, their lips gold and then up again through the earth

and charging through a mountain

when you go to the spot and press the ground, dampness and grass,

there is nothing there except what you can

imagine before

your receding toes, your breath makes no sound.

and a party comes

dancing with

its lamps and furniture, under tables,

out, speaking in a language

that you understand before you know, the girls'

white flesh soft as codfish

as they take your arm becomes your own.

still after they have gone, constantly

changing clothes, you see them on the horizon

and they have grown to millions singing intheir new robes, still you are in your shoes

and under your tongue something melting like a coin.

you go back to find the wet seam

of the wound, your heart grows big as your feet go cold, and stooped there,

pierced with arrows, they swirl back

moving their lips in and out, wearing horns,

reaching for the sunset that snakes and twists

in your bowels.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/FALL 1972 45

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:09:51 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions