Tinman Too: A Life Explored

By David Cope

Continuing the insights into the creative processes of contemporary composer David Cope, Tinman Too presents another 150 vignettes from the author's life begun in his previous book Tinman. Some of the notable individuals discussed in this innovative autobiography are Alfred Hitchcock, Buckminster Fuller, Benoit Mandelbrot, Vincent Price, Jerry Lewis, and Philip Jos Farmer. Tinman Too offers a fond music journey including encounters with William Schuman, Max Mathews, Lejaren Hiller, John Adams, Donald Erb, Mort Subotnick, Walter Piston, Karel Husa, and Witold Lutoslawski.

The title, borrowed from L. Frank Baum's book The Wizard of Oz, is an aphorism affectionately attached to Cope in the late 1990s. The reference reflects the many attitudes about his work with his computer music program, Experiments in Musical Intelligence; critics felt the results of this program lack heart.

Though Tinman Too covers many other aspects of Cope's life-from his love of the cello, to his days as a graduate student at the University of Southern California, and to his work as a composer, author, and teacherthe main theme centers on his search for self-identity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475950687

David Cope

David Cope is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His previous books include New Directions in Music (seventh edition), Techniques of the Contemporary Composer, Computers and Musical Style, Experiments in Musical Intelligence, The Algorithmic Composer, Virtual Music, and Computer Models of Musical Creativity.

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Copyright © 2012 by David Cope

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Contents

Preface

(1941-1956)

1 Forest of the Night

2 Model T

3 OTR

4 Für Elise

5 White Tank

6 Swimming

7 Dentistry

8 Big Rock Candy Mountain

9 Rockets

10 Thunder

11 Spin the Bottle

12 The Game

13 Snark Hunting

14 Composers

15 West Rose Lane

16 Where Art Thou, Romeo

17 Electricity

(1954-1963)

18 Radio

19 Ring Nebula

20 Grandfather

21 Mathematics

22 Spires

23 Transit

24 The Astroidian Evolution of the Moon

25 Conductor

26 Pepper

27 Hitchcock

28 Pianos

29 Announcer

30 Mirrors

31 ROTC

32 Chess Nut

33 Lessons

34 Sisyphus

35 Summer Symphonies

36 Test

37 The Morn

38 Price

39 Professor

40 Contests

41 The Frogs

(1963-1969)

42 Graduation

43 Corkboard

44 Burning

45 Riots

46 One Hundred Melodies

47 Stockhausen Redux

48 Airports

49 Lips

50 Marriage

51 Miss America

52 Owens

53 Bobby

54 Redondo Beach

55 Penderecki

56 Houston

57 NDIM

(1970-1977)

58 CIM

59 Amanita Bisporigera

60 Hospital

61 Lutosławski

62 Finger

63 Kennedy Center

64 Jocko

65 Husa

66 Souvenir

67 Rituals

68 New Music Composition

69 NYC

70 House

71 Santa Cruz

72 Grandma

73 Riverworld

74 Hardwired

(1978-1988)

75 The Tree

76 Trees

77 Subotnick

78 Yosemite

79 Mesostic

80 Durling

81 Administration

82 Emmy

83 Hello

84 Surf’s Up

85 Craterellus cornucopioides

86 Anorexia

87 Tree Circus

88 Drawings

89 Endorphins

90 My Cat

91 Halley’s Comet

92 Richard II

93 Sleep

94 Chimes

95 VW

96 Illinois

97 Mandelbrot

98 Buckminster Fuller

99 Meeting

100 Banham

101 Dom

(1989-1997)

102 Liquid Graduation

103 Wind Chimes

104 Hot Creek

105 Review

106 Quantum Leap

107 Earthquake

108 Ireland

109 Divorce

110 Glasgow

111 Max Matthews

112 Hiller

113 Piano

114 Hat

115 Death Redux

116 Tents

117 Trial

118 Howell

119 Lou

120 Disklavier

121 Adams

122 George Johnson

123 PARC

124 Navajo

125 Tour

(1998-2011)

126 Madison

127 Walks

128 Windows

129 WACM

130 Greg

131 Rome

132 Lick

133 Home Sweet Home

134 Cancer

135 Fleas

136 The Jump

137 Emily

138 Committees

139 CMMC

140 Recording

141 Concerts

142 Colonoscopy

143 Dream

144 Fire

145 Opera

146 Vivaldi

147 Hills Like White Elephants

148 Soldier

149 VLA

150 Resplendent Confusion

Also by David Cope:

Non-Fiction:

New Directions in Music (seven editions)

New Music Composition

New Music Notation

Computers and Musical Style

Experiments in Musical Intelligence

Techniques of the Contemporary Composer

The Algorithmic Composer

Virtual Music

Computer Models of Musical Creativity

Hidden Structure

Tinman

Fiction:

Comes the Fiery Night

The Death of Karlin Mulrey

Not by Death Alone

Death by Any Other Name

Of Blood and Tears

Mind Over Death

My Gun is Loaded

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert Heinlein

Preface

It’s nonsense, said the Rabbit. Just a bunch of stories with no meaning.

They mean something to me, said Alice, or I wouldn’t have written them.

It’s quite possible, said the Queen, that you’re both right.

The Rabbit and Alice looked at the Queen, who always seemed to be correct though sometimes inscrutable.

"It is quite possible," the Queen repeated.

I spent a long time writing them, said Alice, and I meant something by them when I did.

Nonsense, said the Rabbit.

No it’s not, said Alice.

The Queen looked at them both, rubbing her chin with her right hand as she did, and then said, If you’re both right, why are you arguing?

Because I want my stories to mean something to him, Alice said.

Then why don’t you fudge a little, Mister Rabbit, and tell her what she wants to hear. Then you can both be happy.

I won’t, said the Rabbit. I’d be lying.

Fudging, said the Queen.

I won’t, the Rabbit said again.

Okay, then, said the Queen, Alice, why don’t you stop caring what he thinks?

I can’t, said Alice. I care about what everybody thinks.

The Queen rubbed her chin again.

Do you like the tea you’re drinking? the Queen asked Alice.

Not particularly, said Alice.

But it’s perfectly wonderful tea, said the Rabbit.

You’re just being stubborn, said Alice to the Rabbit. You probably hate it, but just saying that to get my goat.

Why would I want your goat? said the Rabbit.

See, said the Queen, That’s all there is to it.

What? said Alice and the Rabbit simultaneously.

The goat, said the Queen. It’s all about the goat.

Both Alice and the Rabbit smiled. The Queen, as usual, was right.

While primarily a composer of twentieth—and twenty-first-century classical music, I also have very strong interests and education in the areas of visual art, chess, game design, mathematics, programming, writing (both academic and novels/short stories), artificial intelligence, and quantum theory. I do not treat these as separate subjects but try, whenever possible, to see how they relate to one another. I am a great believer in trying to understand the world in as many ways as possible, and I refuse to fall into what Gandhi says about specialization: The expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.

When I wrote Tinman, the first book of this series of reminiscences, I gathered together almost five hundred memories I thought might be of interest to readers that expressed my multidisciplinary approach to life. Some of these remain only in my mind to this day. But most of them took shape as written recollections. However, as Tinman approached publication, it became clear that I couldn’t publish all of them in one volume. It would simply be too long. So I limited Tinman to 150 stories, chosen mostly because they followed a consistent thread that made sense to me.

Almost immediately after publishing Tinman, I regretted leaving these other stories out. So I took a long look at the 300-plus already completed stories and chose 150 more that seemed interesting. Hence, the following book, Tinman Too. This too follows a chronological shape, beginning with my earliest recollections and ending near my seventieth birthday. I realize that this makes reading the two books somewhat difficult—as if they were about two different people. Unfortunately, I cannot help this, and I hope you find the two books compatible.

Again, to refer to individuals in this book, I occasionally use Nameless—a designation that I hope will protect the identities of those I’m describing. Even though this is probably obvious, I also need to clarify that this nom de guerre represents more than one character, depending on the story in which it appears.

Since publication of the original Tinman, many have asked if the apparently simple stories told there are metaphors or represent some other form of symbolism. My answer has remained the same—it’s up to you. However, it could be useful, at least to those of you who’ve asked, to indicate one kind of process that might be applied in attempting to understand my approach. In chapter 25 of Tinman, I recount my participation in an intersquad football game, where, instead of following the coach’s orders, I stole the ball from the opposing team and ran for a touchdown, only to be dismissed from the team for doing so. One might ask, since no further analysis takes place, why would a coach throw off the team someone who’d just scored a touchdown? Just for not following instructions? Seems quite shortsighted. However, one might consider that if I’d been wrong, and the game had been for real, the opponents might have been passing instead of reversing, and the very person I’d been told to block could then have caught the pass and run for a touchdown. In other words, though I don’t say so in the story, my not following instructions could have worked out very differently. In fact, once the opponent understood my actions, my team’s adversary could easily have achieved touchdown after touchdown, simply as a result of my not having covered the player I’d been ordered to cover. Understanding this might, if readers choose to so interpret it, lead to further implications for, say, business, the military, conduct in large-scale societies, life itself, and so on. Or maybe it is just an autobiographical recounting of my refusal throughout life to follow instructions. Or it’s merely a straightforward statement of facts as they occurred. Readers should make such interpretations for themselves.

And what about the snippets of writing and poems that precede and follow each chapter? In Tinman, I describe these as interesting explanations and expansions of the associated chapter’s contents. In Tinman Too, these are less excerpts from my previous books and more computer-created poems, including quotes from my more recent books. And yet I still mean them to explain and expand on the material of the chapter itself.

Again, I leave such interpretations to readers. The maCrOstics here, as in TinMan, continuE to be fonted codeS THat providE Further Information about thE unnamed individuals, places, and ciRcumstances of the chapter’s storY. NothIng has chanGed except tHe acTual content. As for the larger code that the book itself contains as a whole, it differs from that of Tinman, but can be discovered in like manner as described there. i should also mention that these hidden messages follow my plan to control the tempo at which the text and poetry reveal information. In this way, I feel that reading these excerpts can be an intrinsically musical experience.

Some of the individuals I have known over the years will expect to read of their adventures here and will be disappointed not to find them. I did not, however, choose stories based on closeness of friendship, but rather on the interest of the adventures themselves. Those left out may therefore consider themselves saner and more mature than many of those included. These left-out individuals might also understand that these two books are only the beginning of a continuing saga.

I wish to thank every one of the people who wittingly and unwittingly helped create the events I relate in this book. Many of them are now dead and unable to read of their exploits. Some are alive and may agree or disagree with my characterization of their actions. This is understandable. I argue only that these are my recollections; they do not necessarily represent the recollections of others.

Autobiographies, memoirs, and personal histories such as this are usually written by elder statesmen and stateswomen—important people about whom the public clamors for more enlightenment. I am not one of these people. Thus, as someone in the audience at one of my recent lectures charmingly asked, What makes you think you’re so important that you feel the need to write a book about yourself? It’s a good question, deserving a reasonable answer. I shall provide two. I have lived a fairly eventful life—whether by accident or by providence, I don’t know. Unexpected circumstances—not necessarily of consequence, but of interest—have followed me wherever I have gone. Probably less important, I have a good memory of these events, and even though I admit to slight slips and embellishments here and there, I can recall them in proficient detail. I have even at times recounted these memories in diaries, parts of which I include here.

(1941-1956)

1

Forest of the Night

by approaching them with SignAls,

we were iNtelligent but deFective,

because without noticing the soldieR’s music

ANd the rites of war we hid the slain,

from this time forth,

and beCause I waS not able

to overCOme my effort.

1941-1946

I was born in 1941, just a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into WW II. I don’t remember much about those early years except for my introduction to the piano at a very early age, the pain of asthma, along with the doctors’ attempts to limit its effects, and Culver City near Los Angeles, where my parents lived until 1946, when they were forced to move to an arid climate to keep me alive.

I also remember my favorite possession during that time—a quadricycle covered in an aluminum skin painted like a Flying Tiger airplane. Many of the authentic ones were then busy winning the war in the Pacific. I loved my Flying Tiger, and everyone in the neighborhood knew me as the little boy pedaling a tiger, since, aside from practicing the piano, sleeping, and eating, I seemed always to be riding around in it. I’m also sure that many who witnessed this found it mysterious, since it neither flew nor resembled a tiger, except for the painted one on its nose.

My parents took many photos of me in my Flying Tiger. I enjoy viewing them occasionally even now, for the memories take me back to a time during which—aside from constant physical afflictions—life seemed more simple and exciting. These pictures, at least those that I still have, show me smiling broadly, proud of my indirect participation in the war effort, and attempting to look like John Wayne in his plane from the movie Flying Tigers, filmed around that time.

My experiences with the quadricycle tiger came to an abrupt end when we moved to Arizona, however. I was never sure why, because the moving van that packed our family’s furniture seemed plenty big enough to include it. But the tiger never made it to Goodyear, and my life in an imaginary sky came to an end.

I immediately asked my parents what had happened to my Flying Tiger. My mother took a lot of time answering—a giveaway for when she was making something up, or preparing to lie. She finally told me I’d crashed my tiger into a tree and demolished it. I couldn’t remember this happening and told her so. I’ve long since forgotten her exact reply, though it went something like, You’ve probably erased it from your memory to avoid the pain. I didn’t believe her for one minute. Foul play was at work, but I had no idea what kind.

My father couldn’t lie or even pretend very well and told me that it was too hot in Arizona to ride it anyway. At age three, my sister had no more idea than I what had happened to it, but I wouldn’t have expected her to.

And so my days as a wannabe pilot were over, at least as far as being a Flying Tiger were concerned.

Sometimes, even today, I look back on those events and at the photos and wonder what fate my Flying Tiger met. Does someone still ride around in it? Or has it been melted back to basics and now forms parts of other toys that children enjoy? And on and on. Occasionally, when reviewing the pictures for the umpteenth time, I consider scouring the Internet to see what I can discover. There’s so much information available today. But I don’t. Part of me worries, I think, that I might find it. And God forbid I should discover the word Rosebud painted in small letters somewhere on it.

the obscurity of the subject arising

from the forest above,

there is no intention to investigate here

the righteousness by which he doth judge

to make war, and can also be comprehended

by his mind.

2

Model T

at first, i could distinguisH nO people at all,

though i peered intently at them.

would that you at such times seeing me

never shall one moving body

across the sky break the skull

that had a tongue, and could see his feet

as pillars of fire.

1948

The first car I remember my father driving was a black Model T Ford. He’d bought it used and spent most of his driving going back and forth between Goodyear, Arizona, where we lived for a while, and Phoenix, about thirty miles east. I don’t actually remember being driven anywhere in this antiquity, but it’s likely I was.

One day in 1948, my father left for work early in the morning, as was his custom. According to him, he stopped to fill up with gas in Goodyear, since there were no other stations from there until Phoenix. About a third of the way to work he realized that the station attendant had forgotten to replace the gas tank cap. Before he could stop, the passenger in a passing car flipped a lighted match out the window and into the open tank. He quickly pulled off the road and escaped before the old Model T exploded.

An exciting story, and one I’m sure my dad felt was true. He never lied, even to embellish a potentially exciting story. The truth is, though, that a lighted match entering a full tank of gas will just go out. Even if the cigarette had ignited the gas, the fire wouldn’t have lasted long for lack of oxygen. Most likely, the cigarette landed on the backseat and set the cushion on fire. Either way, however, our transportation had gone up in smoke. Literally.

This, of course, became the inspiration for the Copes to purchase a new car. Or a newer used car, more likely. And we did. I remember it as a big, green, low-to-the-ground Ford something. It also had a radio, antenna, soft seats, separate roll-down windows in the back, air vents, and so on. This car so impressed my sister and me that we couldn’t wait for my dad to return from work each day so we could go for drives. It even smelled great.

The lure of evening drives wore off over time, of course, but the memories linger. Even now I remember traveling back and forth several times a night between Goodyear and Litchfield Park, the little town to our north near Luke Air Force Base. And the vacations we took to California in it. Particularly stopping for lunch at a little restaurant below Mount San Jacinto, a great granite mountain just south of Beaumont or Banning, I forget which. Unfortunately, that restaurant burned down. Or the time we spent an unexpected night in a small motel room because the road had been blocked by a large truck loaded with hay burning in the night.

the very conveyances of his lands

Will scarcELy Lie in his palCe,

and the inheritOr himself

no more time than qualifies the sPark and firE of it.

3

OTR

for the devil has come down unto you. for he suffers that father losT and tHE Survivor found. i will for tHAt purpose

anoint my sworD.

1948

Before television came to our house, radio reigned supreme. I spent most of my time listening to washing machine static on my short-wave radio, using the dipole antenna I’d built. I was sure this static contained patterns representing evidence of life elsewhere than on earth. Unfortunately, however, there were many times during the week, mostly in the evenings, when certain regular radio shows were mandatory. The entire family had to listen.

Topping the list of these mandatory programs was You Bet Your Life, with Groucho Marx. This show, which lasted for years on radio and then on television, had a quiz-show format, with Groucho making it all worthwhile with his jokes and puns. Groucho was followed by Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, and less frequently by Sergeant Preston of the Yukon Mounties, Superman, the Cisco Kid, and many more of their ilk.

Those were the days when even adults sat staring into space, listening attentively to comedies and melodramas for hours on end. Many of the voices we heard had unique qualities that we could identify without hesitation by ear. Fred Allen, for example, had a nasal twang to his speech. Funny, no matter what he said. The same with Tallulah Bankhead, whose growling voice had us rolling on the floor.

And, of course, this was the era of imagination. While we knew that the actors stood in front of microphones reciting prescribed lines with sound effects to make things seem real, it didn’t make a difference. Our imaginations made it all realistic.

Along came television, however, and things changed. Radio became music and news, and television took over the comedies and sitcoms. But Old Time Radio, dubbed OTR by those in the know, lives on. Many sites on the Internet provide thousands of OTR shows for geezers like me to listen to again and again, reviving the wonderful programs we heard in our youths. It’s even better now, actually, because we no longer need to wait a week between shows but can pick and choose among them whenever we wish.

Is this just fondness for our childhoods, or was it truly a golden age? Many feel strongly it’s the latter. I wouldn’t believe them, for their average age is most likely seventy, and most of my students find it a sorry state of affairs to have to listen to such drivel without pictures.

and call it tO define true madness.

i could not see that you are naught.

and the play has only been started and

We maKe mistaKes.

i’ve read

that iN sOme book,

but i don’t remember which one.

Were that thoSe

who hold to the mathematical argument

would think of accePting tHOse

that play clowns,

speaking no more than is set down for them.

4

Für Elise

he stopped astride the fence,

in doubt as he looked anxiously over his shoulder,

as he spoke let hercules himself do what he may.

and as soon as ever we told

him there did seem in him a kind of JOy

to wHich he may coNTribute

in a special way to my present undertaking.

for

tHat

new

piece

Of

Music.

1951

When my mother bought her first piano—an upright—she shoved it against the other side of my bedroom wall. I thought this no big deal. After all, the music her young students played was the music I liked. Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, and so on. The classics I listened to anyway on our old 78-RPM record player. Little did I know then what this would eventually mean to my life.

Before the first week of students had finished their lessons, I had an inkling of what was in store for me. Each of them had taken up Für Elise by Beethoven—a simple little ditty with a cute tune to it, but nothing of substance, at least as far as I was concerned. It didn’t really matter, though. For even if it had been his fifth symphony, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Something played in that many wrong ways that many times gets on your nerves. Big-time.

By the end of the second week, I even hated the title. Of course, I had no idea who Elise was, or why Beethoven had written this piece for her, but I began hating her, as well as hating Beethoven, the students, the publisher, and the piano. I figured I wasn’t allowed to hate my mother, so I let that one go.

As the weeks turned to months and the months, years, I got away from it for a while by going to college and graduate school. After that, I met my wife, married her, and soon found myself listening all over again to Für Elise. (She too is a piano teacher.) At different tempos, mostly with the same mistakes, and more times than there are grains of sand on the earth. Maybe in the universe. And it continues to this day. We have a grand piano now, and our bedroom, where I occasionally sleep late, is just above that piano on the second floor, where I can hear the notes loud and clear. In the next room is my studio where I can hear them as well. Softer, I admit, but hear them nonetheless.

I have now listened to all or part of Für Elise more times than any human should have to endure. And none of the performances have been correct. No matter how much I pull in favor of the students getting the notes right, it never happens. I’m not sure I even know the right order anymore. I certainly don’t care. I wear earplugs when it gets to me. But even then, since I know it’s Für Elise they’re playing, I hear it messed up in my head.

Most of the composers that lived after Beethoven went crazy in one way or another. Maybe they too had just heard Für Elise one too many times. I don’t know. But I do know that I never want to hear it again. Right or wrong. But if I must, I’m going to do my best not to run screaming from my house and into the mountains above Santa Cruz, wailing about the torturous nightmare that one Ludwig van Beethoven has cruelly put me through by composing that damnable piece of music.

his life as the best actor in the world,

either for tragedy or the imminent death

of twenty thousand men.

will i make a Pillar in the temple of my god?

the foul crimeS dONe in my days of nature on a

musical

or

pictorial

impression.

5

White Tank

thus the force of the same load-stone

is greater at less distance.

but through the twilight,

the jutting arches left in ruins

gave that dignity and testament that leads us

back to the argument of

consciousness,

and from afar the idea of surprise.

besides all this i could see

all the way down

the snow-capped MountAiN.

1951

Summers in Phoenix often bring temperatures above 120 degrees, so hot that, even with the lack of humidity, people are driven indoors. In the early 1950s, this meant that few even drove, as this was long before refrigeration in cars. The city grew quiet under the baking sun.

After four in the afternoon, however, things got cooler, and residents began peeking their noses out of their front doors and going outside again. Occasionally that meant that the Copes took a drive. With the car windows open. Once in a great while, we even had picnics in the desert.

I remember just such an event taking place at the south end of the White Tank Mountains, so named for the large water storage tank standing on their highest peak. Special occasions like this one meant hot dogs roasted over an open fire, followed by burnt marshmallows. What fun!

Since the sun didn’t disappear for several hours after our early dinner, I looked around for something to do. I always had to do something. Sitting and thinking, or whatever people do when they remain stationary, was not in my vocabulary. So I decided, for whatever reason, to create a trail. From the edge of our campground up the side of the mountain. I also decided it should be a really good trail—completely smooth, so no one would stumble. And lined with rocks so that no one would wander off and lose their way.

And so I began, fending off questions from my parents and sister as to what in God’s name I was up to. It was clear that in the few hours left before darkness there was no way of finishing the trail, but that didn’t matter. I’d also figure out where it was going as I went along. Or some other time. For now, it was going up. I’d finish at some future date.

I walked a few paces, using a stick to mark the path the trail would take, then turned and created a switchback, which roads tend to have when climbing mountains.

After I’d gone about as far as I thought I could marking the trail’s path, I returned to my starting point and began collecting proper-size rocks and making stacks of them at appropriate distances along the trail. Then I began in earnest to create the true trail. I cleared all vegetation—not that there was much to clear. This was the desert, after all, and nothing much grew here. I pounded my feet on the sand and soil to make it as flat as possible and then lined it with the rocks I’d piled along the way for just this purpose. And up the trail went.

I suppose my earnestness was contagious, for after about a half hour, I found the rest of the family busy clearing, pounding, and stacking along with me. And the trail continued its way upward. It was great. No one spoke a word—everyone as busy as any city homebuilder might be.

When darkness came, the four of us had finished maybe forty feet of switch-backed, rock-lined trail on its way up the side of the small hill, maybe thirty feet in elevation. And then it just stopped, looking incomplete but incredible. No one could resist giving it a try. I imagined someone arriving at this spot several years in the future, taking the trail, coming to its end, and wondering where in hell it was supposed to go from there. No view, nothing much to speak of by way of interest at that point, but a great time getting there.

As we drove home, I expected questions but got none. Apparently my message had gotten through, whatever the message was. And we never returned to the picnic area at the south end of the White Tank Mountains. I don’t hold anyone responsible for that. After all, we were busy with other things. Life, for example. But occasionally I wonder whether the trail’s still there. It pleases me to imagine that some part of it is. We certainly built it sturdy enough. And the rains come rarely in that area of Arizona.

over the rIdge

he Carried me away in spirit.

6

Swimming

whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea

as if against some ghost in meditation

   or the thoughts of Love whIch can profiTably

   be thought of as being drowned.

and that i hope i will teaCH you to imagine hell

and burial there must be no more than be done

a with a wheat FIELD.

1951

Sometime during my tenth year of life, a friend of mine and I convinced our parents to allow us to walk to a public swimming pool several miles away and spend the day there. It was a great victory for us both, being on our own so far away from home.

Once at the pool, we belly flopped, dog-paddled, swam a bit, played with some kids we knew, and had a good time. That is, until around two o’clock, almost three hours before we had to leave. Suddenly the lifeguards got busy, and before we knew it the pool had emptied, and we were sent away, even though we had a full day’s pass.

The reason for the evacuation, we discovered before we left, was that an eight-year-old boy had gone under—a euphemism for drowning.