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| Illustration by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
Life is a sweet mess in the laughter of the stars,
A sparkling, wild affair, ever in sudden, sweet surprise.
Where scars collide with wonder, then tangle into ours,
And chaos shines and flies, beyond all our careful tries.
In the spill of darkness bright, we come to learn to stand,
Stumbling into joy, with dusty wounds upon our hands.
Nor may the cosmos judge the paths we come to choose,
Tho' it hums and laughs along the way, as we win and lose.
In life we learn to dance between the broken and the whole,
Each held in fragile orbit that no one fully can control.
Meaning flickers briefly, then softly drifts afar,
Still warm upon the breath, of every living star.
We trip on hope and call it learning's sailing mast,
Tying present joys onto echoes of our flown past.
Every moment hums with airy chances oft' half-unseen,
In maybe-worlds dangling 'twixt what is and has been.
Our doubts no less have rhythms when they fall or rise,
Like fiery meteors briefly lighting evening's tender skies.
Nothing is ever wasted - neither ache nor gentle bliss,
Each a scattered synchronicity we too often easily miss.
As a churning universe leans forward, never in hasty rush,
Inviting us to savor, whatever we deem to try.
So may soft words make rare constellations from moiling grays.
That cannot be improvised with starlight upon our tomes.
And answers back in lilting echoes, oft as thin as air.
And to bless the mess that keeps our hearts in hopeless frazzel.
And carrying dashed forevers on darkened, fleeting smiles.
And each life but a fragile verse that doesn’t last too long.
Shines briefly-bright newborn stars on every morning's fears.
R.E. Slater
January 17, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
This poem is written in grateful conversation with The Little Prince, not as imitation but as inheritance. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry gave language to a way of seeing the universe that is tender rather than triumphant, relational rather than commanding.
Here, the stars do not instruct or judge. They accompany. They laugh at times - not in mockery - but in shared delight at the strange beauty of evolving becoming. Life, in all its shared confusion and brilliance, is not a problem to be solved but a tender participation to be lived.
If the poem carries any wisdom, it is this: meaning is not imposed from above, but discovered in attention, kindness, and the courage to remain open.
PROCESS NOTES
1. “Life is a sweet mess”
This line expresses a process ontology rather than a personal moral judgment. Reality is not disordered because it has failed to reach perfection; it is supremely creative because it has not finished becoming. The status of "mess" is but the visible trace of processual novelty.
2. “Laughter of the stars”
The cosmos - or, Divine Sacred - as used here in neutral expression is non-coercive. Laughter is neither control nor indifference; it is deeply felt resonance. For without it, life is a sterile, hateful thing. Rather than the Greek view of a universe which is stoic, transcendent, impersonal, and indifferent - it shows itself as an integral partner in participating with evolving life by making room for it too grow, explore, test, and fail.
3. On becoming and improvisation
“No script is fixed” reflects a non-deterministic metaphysic. The future is not pre-written; it is co-authored, moment by moment, day by day. Even error, failure, and suffering contributes a processual texture to the unfolding organic canvas of the whole.
4. On value without permanence
“Each life but a fragile verse that doesn’t last too long” affirms organic value without senseless immortality. Meaning does not depend on endurance. It depends on intensity of value-based participation which gains its completeness in a reality resonating with song.
5. On listening
Listening is the poem’s quiet ethic. Not obedience. Not certainty. But attentiveness - what process thought recognizes as relational responsiveness.
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| Original title: Le Petite Prince (1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry |
NOTES ON "THE LITTLE PRINCE"
