A well-thumbed physics book
lies open to atomic diagrams
and sketched galaxies across
puzzled margins of thought.
Holding pages of moon and stars
once fixed in construction's order,
now accompanying one another
across quantum webs of gravity.
Drifting across a Milky Way's
cosmic body splayed rotating arms
on silvery threads of light and dark,
is bound starry, vibrating, wonder.
From wooden desk to lit sky,
and from lit sky to galactic edge,
process pens an ancient story
repeated over and over,
again and again.
Ideas can never be absolutely fixed -
are but timeful events passed to paper
from the gyrating folds of restless minds,
lying encoded upon a desk's metasurface.
So too, an open, evolving, future
can never be positively predicted,
birthing lures of novelty ever bidding
all entropic, processual worlds to become.
And somewhere between the relational
rise of hot coffee and starry firmament;
between the minds of Whitehead and Science,
lies nighttime's quiet, rhythmic humming.
Then stirring... mindful of itself...
stretching its legs... arching its back...
readying for bed before receding dawns...
in moment-by-moment ebbs and flows.
by R.E. Slater
January 12, 2026@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
Author's Notes
Theme: The Philosophy of Organism
This poem embodies Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism, in which reality is not composed of enduring substances but of actual occasions - timeful events of experience that arise, integrate, and perish in rhythmic succession. These occasions do not exist in isolation; they prehend one another, enfolding the past into the present "now" as creative novelty forming into becoming. What appears as continuity is, at its depths, a patterned succession of experiential (concrescing) moments - each one pouring its feeling and tone to into an advancing, processual, world.
The poem renders this ontology concretely. Ideas are not fixed abstractions but events passed to paper, emerging from the gyrating folds of restless minds rather than flowing from a static intellect. Even thought itself is shown to be a process of concrescence: where there are many influences - a coffee’s warmth, a worn physics text, galactic imagery, the quiet of night - have gathered into momentary units of unity (or, composition) before yielding again to the ongoing, continuous advance of novel, moment-by-moment, concrescing experiences.
Even the wooden desk is not inert. Its metasurface is implicitly understood as a quantum field - an energetic lattice in which matter, memory, and neural activity are already in motion though betrayingly "static" in a macro world of relativity. Thus, the poem collapses any sharp divide between mind and matter, symbol and substrate. The nano-scale vibration of wood, the neural electrical activity of thought, and the stellar rotation of galaxies, each-and-all are participating in the same processual grammar.
The poem’s recurring motifs - repetition, again and again, ebbs and flows - express Whitehead’s own philosophic vision of time - not as linear succession toward some imagined finality - but as continuous cyclical renewal. Here, each moment perishes, yet nothing is lost; its forms are inherited, its feelings transmitted. The future is therefore not predictable, but rather, lured within an open field of potentialities and possibilities inviting continuous, novel, mergers and integrations.
As such, the phrase, “quiet, rhythmic hum,” marks the world’s self-attunement. This hum is not merely background noise but the felt continuity of relational existence in solidarity with itself - the integration of subjective aims across macro-and-micro scalar dimensions. From coffee cup to cosmos, from neural fold to galactic arm, the poem portrays a universe mindful of itself, resting briefly between acts of creative advance, then "awaking" and marching onwards.
Tonality: Contemplative and Liminal
The poem inhabits a liminal register - between waking and sleep, thought and rest, matter and meaning. Its tone is hushed, cyclical, and attentive, dwelling in the quiet, rhythmic hum of night where distinctions soften without dissolving. The scene is grounded in ordinary materiality - a wooden desk, a used cup of coffee - yet sublimely opens seamlessly into the world's many cosmic dimensions, revealing a form of sacred naturalism (or better, sacred reality, thus interiorizing, rather than externalizing, "reality"...) in which no appeal to supernatural interruption is required. The Sacred/Reality is already there, inhabiting the now, the eternal, the material, and ethereal. Hence, sacred naturalism explains the move to processual panentheism, but sacred reality completes it.
In this vision, the sacred - or God - is not located beyond the world as an external cause, but within it as an indwelling presence. Divinity is encountered not through supernatural interruption but through the very processes of becoming themselves: in timeful events, relational integration, and the persuasive lure toward novelty and harmony. Sacred reality is thus not opposed to nature, but is nature’s deepest expression AND teleology - already inhabiting both the material and the ethereal, the finite moment and the ongoing advance of the whole.
The Sacred, then, is not elsewhere. It is here. It is disclosed in processual participation: in the acts of thinking, in the folding of memory, in the shared rhythm of entropic worlds becoming. Drinking coffee, reading physics books, thinking, even observing the stars, are not separate orders of meaning but expressions of a single processual reality, momentarily pausing before it ebbs and flows again.
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| Illustrated by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
The Lamplighter
by Robert Louis Stevenson
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky.
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa's a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I'm to do,
O Leerie, I'll go round at night and light the lamps with you!
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!
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| Illustrated by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
The Moon and the Stars
and the World
long walk at night
the breeze freezes my spirit
the moon warms it up
pulling at my poetic soul
the crickets sing their poems to the night
a million other insects contribute their share
to loosen up the night
for lovers, husbands and wives
while a tide of words too
creeps in all directions in my mental sphere
saturates the poetic bar of the intellect
waiting to be strummed into verses
the rhythm swims along with them
as i write out verse by verse
the moon my friend shares its light
the night wind inspires
lovelorn stars wave all the way
a million light years away
heralding the birth of a song
sparkling, twinkling
guided by intricate orchestration of the night
before gracing the written page
long walk in the night
even the insects with the lamps
start to lend me their lights
between the twinkle of the stars
they dance, sing, beat out a dance
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| Illustrated by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
Night-Night
by Cj Heck
Night-night moon
Night-night stars
Night-night noisy
trucks and cars.
Night-night sand box
Night-night toys
Night-night other
girls and boys.
Night-night mom
Night-night dad
Night-night Boogie Man
who's not bad.
It's time to go to sleep now,
most all my night nights said.
Night-night blankie
Night-night bed.
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| Illustrated by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
Good-Night
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The lark is silent in his nest,
The breeze is sighing in its flight,
Sleep, Love, and peaceful be thy rest.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
Sweet dreams attend thee in thy sleep,
To soothe thy rest till morning's light,
And angels round thee vigil keep.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
Sleep well, my love, on night's dark breast,
And ease thy soul with slumber bright;
Be joy but thine and I am blest.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
by William Blake
THE sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest.
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.
Farewell, green fields and happy grove,
Where flocks have took delight:
Where lambs have nibbled, silent move
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing
And joy without ceasing
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.
They look in every thoughtless nest
Where birds are cover'd warm;
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm:
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.
When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
They pitying stand and weep,
Seeking to drive their thirst away
And keep them from the sheep.
But, if they rush dreadful,
The angels, most heedful,
Receive each mild spirit,
New worlds to inherit.
And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold:
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold:
Saying, 'Wrath, by His meekness,
And, by His health, sickness,
Are driven away
From our immortal day.
'And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
I can lie down and sleep,
Or think on Him who bore thy name,
Graze after thee, and weep.
For, wash'd in life's river,
My bright mane for ever
Shall shine like the gold
As I guard o'er the fold.'
