position statement
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
Position StatementAuthor(s): Robert PetersSource: The North American Review, Vol. 256, No. 4 (Winter, 1971), p. 53Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117261 .
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ashamedly that finally the stewardess has to help her back to the stewardesses' private lounge where she will be more
comfortable.
bhe has been lying outside in the sun all day because she cannot stand to be shut up in the library and her eyes are
closed, covered with ice packs and she keeps thinking over and over that life is a tragedy to those who feel, a comedy to those who think, a
tragedy to those who feel, a
comedy . . .
comedy . . .
comedy . . .
comedy . . . But the words do
not work and so finally she gets up and goes back into the
house, angry with herself for even thinking that they would.
She has suspected for a long time only tonight known for sure as he tells her of his need, this terrible hold the other boy had gotten over him ? how he was his other self,
only without all the weaknesses and how he has to possess those strengths, and of the guilt that followed, the hor
rible guilt that made his voice break whenever he was
talking to anyone
? even a close friend, or that it was
finally impossible to give a lecture or to walk into a room where there would be even a few people, without first
telling himself that everyone in that room had sinned, was
just as guilty as he. She reaches across the table and puts her hands over his
and feels his anguish, his confusion, so much so that she
wonders could she marry him.
A professor who is married, but who is not this evening thinking of his wife, suggests to her over drinks:
"Any extreme moral position is a way of keeping life from happening to you.
"Perhaps you are too moral."
She is vaguely aware that he is in love, not with her, but with something about her
? things irrelevant to what she
really is. She tells him this. "Your position?" he says. "Christ. Of course I'm
proud of . . . ."
"They have asked me to stay on," she continues.
"Harvard has long emphasized the study of art ? art as
history, rather than encouraging the creative process itself.
I think I can do something to change that." He sighs. "Double talk. I don't want that for you. I
want you to have a family, children. Christ, Daphne. You re
almost thirty years old!" She hears the words, but they do not touch her. Oddly
enough, for some months now, time has had little meaning for her, and this fact has somehow come as a relief.
"I'm older than you," she says. He sighs, then reaches across the table, his hands finding
hers, and begins to trace the shapes of her fingers with his own. She becomes uneasy, leans toward him.
"I must go to Ireland first." "Ireland?"
"Before I am sure about us."
"And after that?" "What?"
"After Ireland, what else will it be?" She does not understand. O
ROBERT PETERS
POSITION STATEMENT
unaware
that beneath its
old brown shawl
the lice are
rearranging
themselves
the day sits
cracking its knuckles.
the lice
will find new
routes into
the navel, new
headlands of
fat, brilliant
artillery
positions
along valleys
of muscle.
a minimal anxiety
keeps the tendons
of my neck taut.
I feel warm.
I love you in whatever guise
you choose
to see me.
this day is
no more beggarly
senile than
any other.
who invented it?
who invented night?
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/WINTER 197 I 53
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