jeremy beck pause, and feel, and hark (innova 650) Sonata No. 3 "Moon" (1997) for violoncello and piano Aria da Capo 3:47 ...sings upon waking. Pavane 3:40 ...receives a Princess. Galliard 5:47 ...observes the precious foibles of the Earth. Emilio Colon, violoncello Heather Coltman, piano Songs Without Words (1997) for flute and harp Irresistible Death 2:58 after Pablo Neruda ...mists of brightness... 3:13 after Edna St. Vincent Millay Nightwatch 2:54 after Vikram Seth Elizabeth Sadilek, flute Gretchen Brumwell, harp Black Water (1994) for soprano and piano based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates Part One 12:02 Part Two one 3:13 two 3:29 three 2:32 four 2:55 five 16:06 Jean McDonald, soprano Robin Guy, piano total time 62:43 *** Growing up in Quincy, Illinois, I started playing the cello in the fourth grade in the public schools. Through the succeeding years my favored experiences as a cellist always involved orchestral or chamber music (I admit to having an ego, but I was never a soloist). Playing the cello was a critical part of my development as a lyrical composer - I was a part of a high school string quartet that played Ravel's exquisite work, and I fiercely remember the excitement of performing Beethoven's Seventh in Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony in 1978 (the visceral thrill of playing low B#'s in the coda of the first movement cannot be explained, only experienced). Because of this background, my cello sonatas are intensely personal works and some of the music I hold dearest to my heart. Further, they reveal aspects of my tonal idiom, a personal dialect based on expanded tonal and voice-leading principles which I have designed, crafted and developed over many years. My first sonata was written as an undergraduate at the Mannes College of Music in New York (when, in the early 1980's, it was still on East 74th Street) and my second while a graduate student at Duke. The third sonata (the opening work on this recording) was composed while I was teaching at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. This third sonata has a subtitle: "Moon." Additionally, each of the three movements carries both a heading and an ending title. The headings are classical references, suggesting historical derivations and structural nuances; the endings are poetic, all of which are connected to the primary image of the sonata. The poetry is meant to open emotional windows into the interior of the piece, rather than suggest specific visual cues. "Aria da Capo (...sings upon waking.)" begins with an aria for the cello, accompanied by a simple ostinato in the piano. However, this ostinato is deceptively simple, for within it one may find the seeds for the other two movements of the piece. The middle section of this movement becomes much more rhythmic, with a jazz-like interplay between the instruments. This "middle section" actually ends the movement, and the expectation of a da capo aria is unfulfilled (for the moment). "Pavane (...receives a Princess.)" is also in a suggested ternary form. Here, the A sections demonstrate a reinterpretation of the first movement's texture, with another melody in the cello supported by an ostinato accompaniment. The B section continues the opening flow of the music, but at twice the tempo, giving the music a sense of almost boundless rushing. There is a brief coda which brings back the opening tempo but, again - as in the first movement - there is no true return. The last movement, "Galliard (...observes the precious foibles of the Earth.)," begins with a fast, chromatic figure in the piano. This chromatic figure is varied as it unfolds and - simultaneously in augmentation - it becomes the cello's principal melody. The form of this movement is rhapsodic, suggesting something like a "developing rondo" with interludes. The first interlude is a brief digression for the solo cello, an unaccompanied meditation on the principal figure. After this, the fast music continues until we reach a moment which suggests the next interlude. Instead, the final statement of the second movement unfolds and this is then followed by the da capo aria of the first movement, which had been left unfulfilled. It is as if the final movement's fast music had continued on, spinning into silence, while the musicians at hand revisited unfinished thoughts. Sonata No. 3 ("Moon") was composed in 1997. It was premiered on a NACUSA-New York concert at Christ and St. Stephen's Church in New York City on 21 March 1999 by Grace Lin (cello) and Steven Huter (piano). It is dedicated to my friend, the composer Stephen Jaffe. *** Songs Without Words (1997) is in three movements, each of which reflects the tone and structural content of an individual poem. The first is Irresistible Death ("La poderosa muerte"), after the fourth canto of Pablo Neruda's "The Heights of Macchu Picchu" ("Alturas de Macchu Picchu"). Neruda's poem is a complex meditation on life and death, in which the protagonist's thoughts rapidly fly through a kaleidoscope of fragmented images and emotions. This is followed by ...mists of brightness..., a phrase which is taken from the interior of Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnet XVII, from "Second April" (1921). When I too long have looked upon your face, Wherein for me a brightness unobscured Save by the mists of brightness has its place, And terrible beauty not to be endured, I turn away reluctant from your light, And stand irresolute, a mind undone, A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight From having looked too long upon the sun. Then is my daily life a narrow room In which a little while, uncertainly, Surrounded by impenetrable gloom, Among familiar things grown strange to me Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark, Till I become accustomed to the dark. The last movement is entitled Night Watch, after a 1987 poem by Vikram Seth. Awake for hours and staring at the ceiling Through the unsettled stillness of the night He grows possessed of the obsessive feeling That dawn has come and gone and brought no light. While there is no direct or literal connection between these poems or the music which reflects them, they are linked by common images, and a story of sorts may be seen to emerge through the progression of these shared images. Songs Without Words was composed in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and completed while I was in residence at the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, New York in May of 1997. Written for Elizabeth Sadilek (flute) and Gretchen Brumwell (harp), it was premiered by them at Iowa State University on 1 February 1998. The second movement is dedicated to Jane D. Marsching. *** While I have composed works in a variety of media, I have a particular interest in the genre of theater, both in opera and in other hybrid forms. In my more recent compositions for the stage, I have been exploring new structural definitions of time without abandoning a fundamental narrative at the core of each piece. Much of traditional Western music is conceptually based on a clear linear development of material. In easing away from this concept, I have been employing musical analogs to certain techniques frequently found in film, video and literature: flashbacks, crosscutting, sharp juxtapositions of diverse material, as well as the layering of simultaneous yet unrelated events in time (i.e., parallel construction). Upon reading Joyce Carol Oates's novel Black Water (New York: Dutton, 1992), numerous musical possibilities along these lines suggested themselves to me. Once her permission was secured in May of 1993, I completed this work in 1994 (writing and shaping the libretto myself from her text). This extended composition for soprano and piano is not a song-cycle per se, but is closer in its form to that of a monodrama, with the soprano and the pianist assuming multiple roles and states of mind (following the variety of levels created by Oates). Oates's story is a slightly veiled fictional account of the events at Chappaquidick in 1969. It is presented completely from the point of view of the drowning woman: in reality, in flashback, in dreams and in hallucinations. And while this is a theatrical piece, it is meant to be a work which is not quite in the character of an opera. In other words, there isn't any staging, scenery or props involved in its performance. The theater of the piece is to be derived completely from the story itself and the manner in which it is communicated by the two performers. The soprano's role may be related to that of an ancient Greek poet, who sang epic poems to an audience, using the music as a means to further communicate the theatrical nature of the story. Written and composed in Cedar Falls during the fall of 1994, the creation of Black Water was supported, in part, by a Summer Fellowship from the University of Northern Iowa Graduate College. This work was premiered by Jean McDonald (soprano) and Robin Guy (piano) on 29 March 1995 at the University of Northern Iowa. Black Water was written for, and is dedicated to my dear friend, soprano Jean McDonald. *** The recordings on this CD represent some of the finest performances of my music. The emotional and musical depth as well as the essential technical skill brought to bear by these performers in the rendering of what had only been a part of my imagination is wondrous. Heather Coltman and I have been friends and colleagues since we were students together at Mannes in the early 1980's. She has premiered many of my works over the years, and I consider her one of the foremost interpreters of my music. I am indebted to her attention to detail and the breadth of her musical intuition - the beauty of Emilio Colon's impassioned playing combined with her knowing support make the recording of Sonata No. 3 one of my favorites. I met Elizabeth Sadilek at an Iowa Composers Forum event at Iowa State University in the mid-1990's. She played in a duo with the harpist Gretchen Brumwell, and asked if I would compose a piece for them. Songs Without Words was the result of that request, and here they skillfully reveal the excitement, tenderness and yearning which may be found in that work. Finally, I befriended Jean McDonald and Robin Guy when I was teaching with them at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. These two musicians have devoted themselves to successfully presenting the filigree and architectural complexities which make up Black Water. Most importantly, in doing so their exquisite musicianship has invested the piece with the power of the tragedy which is at its core. Let me be clear: this recording of Black Water provides a touchstone for any musicians intent upon taking up the challenge of this work. (c) 2005 by Jeremy Beck *** Jeremy Beck (b. 1960) is a dramatic and lyrical composer of works for varying orchestral, chamber and vocal forces. In 2004, Wave -- a Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra CD devoted to his music -- was released on the innova label (innova-612). Reviews of Beck's CD describe his Sinfonietta for string orchestra as "harmonically inventive, thoroughly engaging ... sinewy and gorgeous" and Death of a Little Girl with Doves for soprano and orchestra as displaying "imperious melodic confidence [and] fluent emotional command." His opera The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel was named by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one of the Top Ten Cultural Events in Pittsburgh for the year 2001, while the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hailed the work at its premiere as "superb ... more successful compositionally ... than many new works seen at major opera houses." Another of his operas, The Highway, was presented by New York City Opera as a part of that company's Showcasing American Composers series in May of 2000; at the premiere of this opera at Yale, the New Haven Register declared that Beck's "handling of dramatic relationships and superimposed time was masterful." Beck has earned awards, grants and honors from the American Composers Orchestra, California Arts Council, the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Composers Forum, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Millay Colony for the Arts, Meet the Composer, Wellesley Composers Conference, Oregon Bach Festival, Iowa Arts Council and the American Music Center. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, Duke University and the Mannes College of Music, where his principal teachers included Lukas Foss, Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Stephen Jaffe and David Loeb. Beck currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, Christine and son, Samuel. A native of Puerto Rico, cellist Emilio Colon received a bachelor's degree from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music in 1986, where he won the Pablo Casals Medal upon graduation. As a student and teaching assistant to the distinguished cellist and pedagogue Janos Starker, Mr. Colon earned a master's degree from the Indiana University School of Music in 1989. He won first prize at the Las Americas Festival Solo Competition as well as at Indiana University's Concerto Competition. An active chamber musician, Mr. Colon played with the Emile Beaux Jeux Piano Trio, which won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Sponsorship from Chamber Music America for two consecutive residencies in Iowa from 1993-95. From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Colon was a member of the faculty at the New World School for the Arts in Miami, where he performed throughout Florida as a member of the string Trio Vizcaya. As a concert cellist, Mr. Colon has toured giving recitals, master classes, and playing as soloist with orchestras in Latin America, Europe and the United States.His recordings are featured on the Enharmonic, Zephyr and Lyras labels. Currently, he is an assistant professor of music at Indiana University and the Executive Vice President of the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center Foundation. Heather Coltman (piano) made her debut in her native country of Zambia at the age of five, and emigrated to the United States in 1966. Since that time she has performed extensively as a solo and collaborative musician throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa. Her principal teachers include Lita Guerra, Claude Frank, David Bar-Illan and Nadia Boulanger, and she holds degrees from the University of Texas (D.M.A.), the Mannes College of Music (M.M.) and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati (B.M.). Among the many competitions in which Dr. Coltman has received top awards are the Johannes Hodges International Piano Competition and the Geza Anda International Piano Competition. Additionally, she won the Outstanding Accompanist Award in both the Corpus Christi Young Artists Competition and the Emanuel Feurmann International Cello Competition. Dr. Coltman is Chair of the Department of Music at Florida Atlantic University where she is a Professor of Music and the Director of Keyboard Studies. Her artistic association with Jeremy Beck began in the early 1980's when they were both students at the Mannes College of Music in New York. She has premiered many of Beck's works, and has recently recorded his "Four Piano Pieces" (1995) for the second time for a future CD release. In addition, Dr. Coltman may be heard performing Beck's "Nocturnes" (1999-2000) on her solo debut CD entitled Dream Chasers (Wisdom Recordings, 2005). Elizabeth Sadilek (flute) is a member of the Boulder Philharmonic and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestras. A winner of the National Flute Association's Performers Competition (1999), she has performed, lectured and held master classes throughout the United States and Europe. Formerly tenured as Associate Professor of Flute at Iowa State University, Dr. Sadilek received her D.M.A. from the Peabody Conservatory, an M.M. from Northwestern University and a B.M. from the University of Iowa. Her primary teachers include Betty Bang Mather, Roger Mather, Willis Ann Ross, Walfrid Kujala, Bonnie Lake and Robert Willoughby. Dr. Sadilek's publications include transcriptions of works by Corelli for flute ensemble and Brahms for woodwind quintet. Most recently, she has co-authored a performance guide with Betty Bang Mather for Bach's "Partita in A minor" for solo flute. Gretchen Brumwell (harp) is the principal harpist of the Cedar Rapids Symphony and of the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony (Iowa). As a soloist, she has appeared with the Cedar Rapids Symphony, the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony, the Ottumwa Symphony, the Oskaloosa Symphony, the Iowa City Community String Orchestra and the Blue Lake Festival Orchestra. Ms. Brumwell serves as Harp Instructor at the University of Northern Iowa, Coe College and Wartburg College and maintains a full studio in the Cedar Rapids Symphony School. During the summer she teaches at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan, where she is the Director of the Harp Department. Ms. Brumwell received a Bachelor's degree in Biblical Studies and Humanities from Grace University and her Master's degree in Harp Performance from Rice University. She has studied with Alice Chalifoux, Paula Page, Mary Bircher and Jack Bourdess. Jean McDonald (soprano) is an associate professor of voice at the University of Northern Iowa. She holds degrees in voice performance from the University of Iowa (D.M.A., M.A.) and Simpson College (B.M.). She has appeared as a soloist throughout the Midwest in opera, oratorio and recital, including performances with the Des Moines Symphony, Cedar Rapids Symphony, Quad-Cities Mozart Festival, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, the 121st Messiah Festival of Music and Art (Lindsborg, Kansas) as well as with several new music organizations around the country. Dr. McDonald received a major grant from the Iowa Arts Council to record, in collaboration with Robin Guy, Jeremy's Beck's monodrama, Black Water. She has been a finalist in the District Metropolitan Opera Auditions and the regional National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Auditions and is widely recognized for her skill as a teacher and clinician. Dr. McDonald's students have earned many competitive honors and have been placed in programs of national prominence, including those at San Francisco Opera and Central City Opera. Robin Guy (piano) has performed collaboratively with numerous soloists - including Jean Rife, Denis Brott and Phillipa Davies - and has toured for Affiliate Artists of New York. Her guest appearances have included A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, performances in Russia and international festivals in Brazil and Ecuador. As a soloist, she has performed with orchestras throughout the United States and most recently was featured with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Guy may be heard on recordings released on the Albany, Capstone, Vienna Modern Masters and Mark labels. Her most recent release was with Trio Ariana, a soprano-viola-piano ensemble with which she tours regularly. Dr. Guy holds degrees from the University of Arizona, Baylor University and the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory (Ohio). She is Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano as well as Chair of the Keyboard Division at the University of Northern Iowa. In addition, Dr. Guy spends her summers performing and teaching piano at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. *** Credits and Acknowledgments Sonata No. 3 ("Moon") for violoncello and piano was recorded 17 May 2003 at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida). This recording was partially supported by a travel grant from the School of Music at the University of Louisville (Kentucky). Producer: Jeremy Beck. Engineer: Scott Wynne. Editor and mastering: Jonathan Marcus. Songs Without Words for flute and harp was recorded 17 October 1998 at the University of Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls, Iowa). This recording was made possible by grants from the Iowa Arts Council and the Graduate College of the University of Northern Iowa. Producer: Jeremy Beck. Engineer, editor and mastering: Thomas Barry. Songs Without Words was previously released in 1999 on a Society of Composers, Inc. CD entitled "Connections" on the Capstone label (CPS-8660). Black Water for soprano and piano was recorded 24-27 May 1999 in Clapp Recital Hall at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa). This recording was made possible by an Artist Project Grant from the Iowa Arts Council, with additional funding from the Graduate College of the University of Northern Iowa. I am particularly indebted to the engineering expertise of Rod Hanze; without his patience and thoughtful insight, this recording would not have been possible. Producer: Jeremy Beck. Engineer, editor and initial mastering: Rod Hanze. Final mastering: Jonathan Marcus. Assistant engineers: Bo Kainer, Nick Schaub. CD Mastering: Jonathan Marcus for Orpharion Recordings (Long Beach, California). CD Design: Route 8, A Design Firm innova Director: Philip Blackburn Operations Manager: Chris Campbell "Night Watch" by Vikram Seth may be found in his collection of poems entitled All You Who Sleep Tonight (Vintage International, 1991). It is reprinted with permission of the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House, Inc. The libretto for Black Water is based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates (New York: Dutton, 1992). Copyright (c) The Ontario Review, Inc. The text has been adapted with permission of the author. All compositions are published by Ashmere Music (BMI). Scores and parts may be purchased directly from the composer. For further information, www.BeckMusic.org Innova is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation. *** Black Water - a monodrama - based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates music and adapted text by Jeremy Beck for the Kellys - Part I "The rented car, driven with such impatient exuberance by The Senator, was speeding along the unpaved, unnamed road, taking the turns in giddy skidding slides, and then, with no warning, somehow the car had gone off the road and had overturned in black rushing water, listing to its passenger's side, rapidly sinking." Am I going to die, like this? It's the Fourth of July. Fireworks everywhere. Brilliant flashes of color and light. The party was fun, But he wanted to leave. We're on a back road now. The Senator is driving very fast. Stopping and starting. He snorts. Splashes his drink. I take a deep breath: 'I think we're lost, Senator.' 'You can't get lost on an island, Kelly.' He chuckles. Spills his drink. The one I brought for him - 'One for the road,' he said. 'This is a shortcut, Kelly, There's only one direction And we can't be lost.' 'But the road is so poor -' 'Because it's a shortcut, Kelly. I'm sure.' I look out the window: Such beautiful fireworks! The Senator smiles at me As we fly off the road. *** Not now. Not like this. "At such moments time accelerates. Near the point of impact, time accelerates to the speed of light." I look out the window: Through the cracked windshield I see only darkness A swirling, cold darkness. What is this place? Where are we now? "She was twenty-six years eight months old too young to die thus too astonished, too disbelieving, to scream as the car flew off the road and struck the surface of the near-invisible water as if for an instant it might not sink but float." Not like this. No. *** He's here! I can hardly believe it - the Senator's here! Now this party's getting int'resting - You know how it is When you meet someone. And feel a certain rapport, A kind of connection. You know how it can be, That type of recognition, Like slipping into warm water. 'Don't worry, Kelly. We'll get there and we'll get there on time.' He accelerates. Brakes. Acceleration. Brake again. Now, faster. Curve, accelerate. Turn. Sharper. I hear him say, 'Hey-' As we fly off the road. *** The water is flooding Over the hood, Over the cracked windshield, Seeping Through the crushed door, Dark water Roiling, Churning As if alive, and angry. Don't be angry with me! I'm not a bad girl... Sure, let's have a drink. Vodka-tonic is fine. Sure, let's go for a walk: The beach here is beautiful, The water so blue and crystal clear... (And I wonder When he will kiss me.) *** Let's go - The party was fun but now it's getting slow. Just a minute, Senator - I want to say goodbye to my friends. We're leaving. Don't be mad. I promise I'll call you tomorrow. 'Here's our turn!' He seems so sure of himself. But we're leaving the highway. He must know that, Must have a plan. Surely he knows the way to the ferry... I hear him say 'Hey -' "The Senator fell against her and their heads knocked and how long it was the two of them struggled together, stunned, desperate, in terror of what was happening out of their control and even their comprehension, The Senator fumbled clawing at the safety belts extricating himself by sheer strength from his seat, away from the broken steering wheel, away from the woman frantically clutching at his trousered leg, his ankle, his foot crushing upon her striking the side of her head, forcing himself through the door, with fanatic strength opening the door against the weight of black water, leaving her behind crying, begging, 'Don't leave me! - help me! Wait!'" Part II 1. He'll be back. I know he'll be back. They say The Senator might come to the party today. His best friend is here - Wouldn't that be neat? Dear Grandchild, Remember - The way you make your life, The love you put into it. That's God. He'll be back. He'll save me, of course. Or bring others. Why can't I move? My leg is caught, maybe broken. No - pain - Don't give in to the pain... The door is crushed - The window, cracked - water seeping! No - pain - The dashboard buckled - How did he get out? I hope he's all right... "Was the Senator lying on the weedy embankment vomiting water in helpless spasms drawing his breath deep, deep to summon his strength and manly courage preparatory to returning to the black water to dive down to the submerged car like a capsized beetle helpless and precariously balanced on its side in the soft muck of the riverbed where his trapped and terrified passenger waited for him to save her, waited for him to return to open the door to pull her out to save her: was that the way it would happen?" 2. It's a beautiful day on this island. Sunny and calm. Drinks on the terrace With intimate friends, old and new. The wind is warm, caressing... He's here! I can hardly believe it - the Senator's here! And really so nice, really warm - Not condescending, not what I pictured at all. "Kelly," he says. - imagine that - Calling me "Kelly"! The Senator calling me "Kelly" - Like we were old friends. "Kelly," he says. Now, later, away from the others, Walking along the shore. "Kelly," he says And touches my arm, Wondering if I feel cool or warm From the wind From his hand From his eyes... So surprising, Exciting. To be kissed on the beach. The sun getting lower. As the black water filled her lungs, and she died. "Except:" 3. Thank God! They've gotten me out! - go go go go - Sirens blaring: Out of the way! Out of the way! Quickly - go! To the bright lights! In the emergency room - Pump out the water All the black water So cold. The muck and the sewage. The icy mud. All of it out! A horrible black hose Shoved down my throat By a stranger. Scraping my throat, Choking me - No - pain - Sucking the poison out, Poisonous venom, Black water Out of my stomach Out of my veins Quickly - In a matter of seconds, of minutes It's over! I'm here! Under the bright lights With strangers, Cheating Death! 4. Who's this little girl? Dear Grandchild, Scooping you up in my arms So precious, unknowing Your future is also mine: That's God. Will anyone believe me? Chatting with the Senator, Drinking with the Senator, Laughing with the Senator, Driving with the Senator to - where? I'm not sure - Who cares? He likes me, I know he likes me! We missed the ferry he wanted to catch. We'll catch the next one - No big deal. He seems annoyed now - impatient - What's the big deal? Are we lost? I think we might be lost - Should I say something Or will he just think I'm stupid? He must know this isn't the highway. Speeding - This rutted, abandoned road clearly isn't the highway. Skidding - No houses, no lights, no people. Only swampy ditches, lifeless trees. Speeding - Insects' cries, harsh and percussive Skidding - 5. I'm alone. He was here, but now he's gone. Gone to get help, of course. Has it been an hour? Or just ten minutes? He's coming back. I know he's coming back. Where am I now? I mean, exactly - where? What? What did you say? I'd never doubt you - I know you'll be back. "Kelly," he says... My friend, my new, intimate friend. I can breathe. I can manage it. There's a bubble - A large bubble of air. Plenty of air. Just don't panic. So much water, seeping. Black water that smells of sewage and oil - So cold! So cold, even in summer. Just don't panic. He promised. You promised. No, I'd never doubt you - I know you'll be back. "He'd been desperate to get free using her very body to lever himself out of the door overhead...frantic kicking and scrambling like a great upright maddened fish knowing to save itself by instinct." You're wrong! Who are you anyway? I can't see your faces - They're blurred in the windshield. But I tell you, you're wrong! He hasn't abandoned me! He didn't kick me, Didn't just flee. Didn't leave me to die in the black water. He hasn't forgotten - Hasn't abandoned me! "Kicking free of the doomed car swimming desperate to save his life to shore there lying exhausted vomiting the filthy water which no power on earth could induce him to return to, rising at last to flee on foot, the Senator limping gasping for breath covered in filthy black muck, stumbling back along the marshland road two miles to the highway, disheveled as a drunk and if anyone saw him? photographed him? and if God Who so long favored him now withdrew his favor? and if never elected President of the United States after all? at the highway he crouched panting like a dog crouched in hiding in the tall rushes waiting for traffic to clear so he could run limping across the road to an outdoor telephone booth.What can I do? What can I do? God instruct me what can I do? That girl - she's dead. She got emotional, grabbed the wheel - they'll say manslaughter - they'll get me for - Shut up! Just tell me where you are and I'll come get you." Has it been an hour? Or just ten minutes? I see new faces... These faces are young. Much younger than I remember. How can this be? Mommy and Daddy So young, so happy. I'm so happy! Together with you, together with you again. I've been so scared, Afraid of being forgotten. I'm not a bad girl - Mommy, I'm not. Really, I'm not. Sometimes we argue. Sometimes I know I've said terrible things. And I'm sorry for that. I love you. Both you and Daddy. I hope you know that. Please know that. Your face is so young... How can that be? So beautiful! So beautiful! And Daddy so handsome, Your prince and mine - Oh, Daddy, please hold me again! I've been so scared. Afraid of being forgotten. Don't go away. Please don't go! Stay! Your faces - they're changing! Changing! Mommy and Daddy, you look so old, So tired, so grey, so beaten! Don't be angry with me! I'm not a bad girl. Really, I'm not. Please, don't leave. Don't leave me here Alone. "The accident had not happened yet - for there was the shiny black car only now turning off the highway onto the desolate rutted road, speeding skidding along the road - " As the black water filled her lungs, and she died. "No: at the last possible moment coughing and choking she strained to lift her torso higher, to raise her head higher straining" The bubble - it's smaller. Maybe if I sip it, Just swallow some water Small mouthfuls, It won't be so bad, Like drinking. Small mouthfuls... Soon they will come! Soon he will bring them here! Soon! "She was drowning, but she was not going to drown. She was strong, she meant to put up a damned good fight." He'll be back. I know that he'll be back. As the black water filled her lungs, and she died. "And yet:" Something is out there. Movement by the windshield. He's here! Yes, I see him! He's come back to save me! Now: wrenching the door open! Now: Freeing my legs! Take me to the air! Give me sweet air to breathe! We swim up to the surface! Swiftly, up to the sun! So warm, so inviting! As the black water filled her lungs, and she died. text (c) 1995 by Jeremy Beck