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The Nomination: A. Jay Adler
“A Stone in Water” and Jay’s reading touch on the ineffable nature of our existence on this earth—how the unfeeling stone will outlast us while our memory of that moment we may hold as long as we live. I own his book Waiting for Word in which this poem appears. In this poem and so many others, Jay catches the elusive with words that fly on air and hope and loss.
I touch here only on the essence of his work that soars with the use of unusual punctuation, used with such care, particularly in another poem I think is magical “weightless” so much so that one must think of the originality of Emily Dickinson, though the similarity ends there. His syntax and punctuation in that poem and in “A Stone in Water” mirror the disconnection of loss. The fact that Jay can take the quotidian, a small detail as in the case of the stone in the water and bring to the fore questions of existence, the fact that his words ring like bells softly heard, the fact that his poetry brings me home to my thoughts of life and death to observe with such acute insight make him a poet for all ages and all time.
The Poem – A Stone in Water
A Stone in Water This stone. This water flowing. This flow of water streaming over the stone. You could look at it all day and never stop. How the water endlessly courses liquid and bright. How the stone lies still below. If only every day could be this way in stillness at the bottom of motion with substance at the center of light. You will try to hold it in the palm you stretch between the sediment and sun just to believe you live in the same transparent world; you will hope to preserve in the gladness of your senses (like the blood running through you) the same arresting motion. But the instant you always knew was coming arrives succeeding like all the rest. Now upon now upon now the water flows the stone stays still and you offer your attention knowing this moment, too will last forever.
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