I keep returning to a long-standing image: far out in deep ocean water, a fixed, dark marble sarcopha­gus, not floating but the waves slapping hard against it, though you know the depth of the water is many fathoms. You’re shipwrecked and floundering, but when you come across the sarcophagus you have no choice, in your horror, but to seize it or drown.  And you cling there—lift yourself a little—perhaps see a distant promontory—cry over your fate—and at last you lift the lid of the sarcophagus, only to find it empty, and waiting for you.  Will you swim away for the land, and certainly drown without a tomb to mark you? or will you take this offered resting place and pull the lid closed against the violent waves?