R.E. Slater - The Thunderstorm

The Thunderstorm

by R.E. Slater

Playing outdoors on nearby hills

it was felt before heard or seen -

a stilling, welling silence

making all eerie, alone,

vulnerable.

Looking into the far distance

along a failing horizon -

we  next heard the thundering

echoes rumbling upon our ears

warning of a coming, gathering storm.

The clear skies overhead

quickly turned a dark, wicked green -

within, jagged lightening

flashed, and fell, within the rising,

mountainous, thunderheads.

Running home we gathered inside

to watch and listen at

our large picture window -

seeing the white heat of lightening

then hearing its sizzling crack

in the spanning airs.

As suddenly, the hard rains fell

smiting both earth and field -

falling in thick, heavy, wet sheets

of wind and rain sent hurling

before our watchful eyes.

As soon as the lightening ceased

and heavy rainstorm passed we

tumbled out of the house shod

in yellow raincoats and rubber

rainboots to run and play.

Though the rain showers still

fell pure joy gripped our

little souls delighting

the rain and wind amid the

failing, echoing thunders.

We stomped across large,

muddy, puddles in the farm lane

then ran fast across the lawns

cluttered in branch and tree trash

blown down in the heavy storm.

All lay stirred and shining before

our amazed, wondering eyes -

reviving in greening renewal

where misty rainbows glistened

across the yards.

Tiny bits of arc'd light that

dance'd off the last of the

falling rains, bouncing off

the wet grasses and

wet, dripping trees.

And when gone, we

turned back onto the lane

to stomp and play in the

muddy puddles filled with

wander and discovery.

R.E. Slater

April 19, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

 

New Growth (prose poem)

New Growth

(prose poem)

by R.E. Slater

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. - Eccl 3.1-8 (KJV)

Over the years goodbyes have been said to many things
I have loved - from the tiny moments of familiarity in youth
to remembered habits and climes, grounds and legacies.
And therein was the loss of each passing slice of time,
each moment passing away at first unnoticed then fondly
stored away resonating in the hoary troves of memories of
dear stories and loves passing onto the next day's events.

Once lived moments that had slipped away into memory's
flowing streams - not willingly, nor purposefully, but with
the pained throb and pulse of lived exchange between living
and experiencing - as slices of personal history remembered
in the old ways, old chapters, old familiarities of day and week
and month, saying goodbye without realizing goodbye was said.

It seems especially poignant that humanity's children
from youth to manhood or womanhood, from middle-age
to maturity, and finally the grave, have gathered daily
moments upon moments of sadness or longings, pricking
heart and soul in poignant memories of loss left in the
passing wakes of conscripted moments - moments
which breathed and formed us as we are then and now.

Nor can a footfall be placed forward without tipping
over some collection of moments which had once been
as the new budding growth blooming into the full
vibrant colors of greens and brandish'd assortments
of burnished autumnal oranges, yellows, reds, and
browns, as passing moments ranged far and wide
to succumb a new year's collection of flowing mass.

Whether a sister or brother, a mother or father,
loved grandparent, friend, classmate, workmate - each
life added another series of growth rings enlarging us
like tree rings measuring out momentary millennias
of human frailty and experience till finally exhausted
as fallen timber completing our singular existence
and collected pedigrees in ringed overlays of age.

And when done, the wooded greens or pastural fields -
perhaps entangled in wire, brier or brush - might
find a sprouting seedling rooting into the elder root
sending forth tender shoots a'thirst with hunger deep
into the nurturing ground and dying root as resource
to it's own coming histories, legacies, grounds, and habits.

To grow strong and hail 'neath all weathers and climes
of sun and moon, heat and rain, kept under the starry
expanses testifying to one and all, to each birth and
death, till all tears are dried and all mourning cease,
then gathering upon dewy dawn's wreathed dances of
young and old in reunion's longing, staying laughters.

R.E. Slater

April 16, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

R.E. Slater - Shifting Sands

Shifting Sands

by R.E. Slater

Morning's rising winds came without the cooing desert dove,

Pitched in tuneless streams that rose and fell in hot breath,

Under a hot, waxing sun spewing wind-whipped gyres,

Wheeling in the empty sanded seas before nomadic eye.

Afar lay a ruined Sphinx broken amid the drifting sands,

Its unerring gaze lifting, falling, across the molten heats -

An ancient hull measuring time's temporal strands,

Anchoring eternal rolling tides of forgotten eras.

Blowing, gritty sands gathered and fled in restless swirls,

Their stinging presence recalling past chapters read -

Though nothing moved - neither man nor solitary beast,

One sensed memories forgotten straining to live.

The burning sands ceaselessly re-wove their compositions,

In seam and hull, mast and sail, across the arid wastelands,

Beneath sightless stars enduring daylight's torpid hours,

Writ in toil and strain - a wasteland's echoing dreams.

R.E. Slater

April 4, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

Analysis by OpenAI ChatGPT 4.0

The poem evokes a subtle narration more experiential than linear as reflected in the poem's title. It is visibly rich and spiritually evocative lending to gravitas and motion a mythic weight of paradox-and-contrast as shown in the eighth verse describing the "anchoring of that which cannot be anchored". This is also seen in the image of a ruined Sphinx still working some hidden purpose beneath the gathering strands of "time and dust."

The poem holds a measured, sonic cadence within sharing an erosional feel of emotional connection. It's poetic breath matches with the imagery of wind, sand, and memory motifs woven throughout its versified breadth. Further, it's tone does not end in any form of resolution but in an emotional resonance continually refocusing on an elemental, haunted, and mythic imagery.

Lastly, Shifting Sands might be described as a Whiteheadian elergy to erosional time and space, and humanity's ceaseless attempts to find meaning within motion.

Poetic Themes

• Stanza 1 - Winds and absence
• Stanza 2 - Ruins and time
• Stanza 3 - Stillness and memory
• Stanza 4 - Legacy and erosion

Imagery & Symbols

• The dove’s absence in the opening signals spiritual or prophetic silence.
• A Sphinx's mythical core bespeaking time, erosion, witness.
• Sands acting as carriers of memory, motion, and change.
• "Stars enduring daylight" stating unseen cosmic persistence.
• The tension between voyage and stagnation: Ships in sand: mast, sail, seam, hull

Repetition & Echo

• Each stanza picks up threads from the last stanza:
• The wind and sands recur with evolving tones.
• The shift from external observation to internal sensing.
• And ending "composition" echoes the beginning’s “gyres” and "spewing."

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Statement & Question:

Alfred North Whitehead was a philosopher who developed process philosophy and it's derivative, process theology. It is a mature and complex philosophy which has grown and developed into many other fields and disciplines. How does this poem express Whiteheadian landscapes?

Response by OpenAI ChatGPT 4.0:

Hi R.E.! I’d be delighted to explore that — Shifting Sands is richly compatible with Whiteheadian process philosophy, and it resonates deeply with core themes in Process Thought and Cosmic Becoming.

Let’s walk through how Shifting Sands reflects key Whiteheadian ideas:

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🔄 1. Perpetual Becoming:

Whitehead views reality not as a collection of static objects but as a series of events and occasions, all unfolding through process. The shifting sands themselves — moving, reforming, and eroding structures like the sphinx — become a living metaphor for this world-in-process:

“The burning sands ceaselessly re-wove their compositions…”

— This is pure Whitehead: reality as a tapestry of becoming, not fixed being.

---

🌌 2. Memory & Prehension:

Whitehead’s concept of prehension describes how each actual entity inherits and integrates its past — memory is not passive but constitutive. Stanza 3 of Shifting Sands echoes this:

“Though nothing moved—neither man nor solitary beast—

One sensed memories forgotten straining to live.”

This captures the haunting persistence of the past in the present — the way experience carries its inherited world even in silence or stasis. The sands become like prehending agents, carriers of forgotten moments, echoing how the past lives on in each present actual occasion.

---

🌀 3. Creativity as the Ultimate Category:

Whitehead famously said that Creativity is the ultimate metaphysical principle — even in decay or absence, creativity is happening.

“Writ in toil and strain - a wasteland’s echoing dreams.”

Here, even in emptiness and wasteland, something is always being written, strained out of the void. It's not nihilism — it's the persistence of value-seeking within decay. This is deeply resonant with Whitehead’s optimism in creativity, even when certainty or structure is lost.

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🌟 4. The Immanence of Eternal Objects:

The reference to stars, gyres (tides), and structures like seam and hull, mast and sail — these feel like eternal objects in the Whiteheadian sense: archetypes or forms that enter into the becoming of actual occasions.

“In seam and hull, mast and sail, across arid wastelands…”

These are not merely physical ship parts — they echo with metaphysical endurance, like recurring forms immanent within shifting experience.

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🔭 5. The Loss of Certainty — and the Call to Attentiveness:

Just as the poem Wastelands marked a turning away from structured belief into uncertain attentiveness, Shifting Sands continues that journey into cosmic unknowing.

Whitehead saw religious dogma as often too rigid and called for a religion of beauty, of feeling, of becoming. Shifting Sands is a spiritual cosmology without dogma — and deeply Whiteheadian in that sense.

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✨ In Summary:

“Shifting Sands” is a process-poetic cosmology. It expresses:

• The ephemerality of forms

• The presence of memory in becoming

• The tension of endurance and erasure

• The latent agency of reality even in silence

It feels like something that could live alongside Whitehead’s Process and Reality, or be recited in reflection after Adventures of Ideas.

---

Analysis by Google Gemini 2.0

This poem paints a vivid and somewhat desolate picture of a desert landscape, rich with a sense of ancient history and the relentless power of nature. Here's an analysis of its key elements:

Imagery and Sensory Details:

• Absence of Expected Sounds: The poem begins by subverting expectations with "Morning's rising winds came without the cooing desert dove." This immediately establishes a sense of something missing, a natural element absent, hinting at a harsh or unusual environment.
• Unpleasant Sounds: Instead of the dove's coo, the winds are "Pitched in tuneless streams that rose and fell in hot breath." This auditory imagery evokes a sense of discomfort and aridity, the "hot breath" personifying the wind and emphasizing the intense heat.
• Visuals of Heat and Motion: The sun is described as "hot, waxing" and actively being worked by the wind in "wheeling wind-whipped gyres." This creates a dynamic and almost violent image of the sun's power and the wind's relentless activity. The "empty sanded seas" further emphasizes the vastness and desolation of the landscape.
• The Ruined Sphinx: The image of the "ruined Sphinx broken amid the drifting sands" is central. It symbolizes a fallen civilization, its grandeur diminished by time and the elements.
• Sensory Overload of Heat: Phrases like "molten heats" intensify the feeling of oppressive heat.
• Tactile Sensation: The "blowing, gritty sands" that "gathered and fled in restless swirls" create a tangible sense of the harshness of the environment, with their "stinging presence."
• Visual of Recomposition: The "burning sands ceaselessly re-wove their compositions, "In seam and hull, mast and sail" is a powerful and surreal image. It suggests the wind and sand are constantly reshaping the landscape, creating ephemeral forms that evoke the idea of lost ships and human endeavors buried beneath the desert.
• Contrast of Sight and Sensation: "Beneath sightless stars enduring daylight's torpid hours" highlights the enduring nature of the desert even when unseen.

Themes:

• The Power of Time and Decay: The ruined Sphinx is a potent symbol of the relentless march of time and the inevitable decay of even the most monumental creations. Its broken state underscores the transience of human civilization in the face of nature's enduring power.
• The Dominance of Nature: The poem emphasizes the overwhelming force of the desert environment. The wind, sun, and sand are active agents, shaping and reshaping the landscape, while human presence is either absent or represented by ruins.
• Loss and Forgotten History: The "empty sanded seas" and the "ruined Sphinx" evoke a sense of lost history and forgotten civilizations. The lines "One sensed memories forgotten straining to live" suggest a lingering presence of the past, buried beneath the sands.
• The Cyclical Nature of the Desert: The "ceaselessly re-wove their compositions" implies a continuous cycle of creation and destruction, a constant reshaping of the landscape by the elements.
• Humanity's Ephemeral Mark: The fleeting images of "seam and hull, mast and sail" formed by the sand suggest the temporary nature of human endeavors in the face of such vast and enduring forces.

Literary Devices:

• Personification: The wind has "hot breath," and the Sphinx has an "unerring gaze." This gives human-like qualities to non-human entities, enhancing their impact.
• Metaphor: The Sphinx is a "hull measuring time's temporal strands," and the sands create "seam and hull, mast and sail," using concrete images to represent abstract concepts like time and lost human endeavors. The desert itself can be seen as a metaphor for the vastness of time and the insignificance of individual lives in its context.
• Alliteration: The repetition of sounds like "wheeling wind-whipped," "sanded seas," and "burning sands" creates a sense of rhythm and emphasizes certain images.
• Imagery: The poem is rich in vivid and sensory imagery, allowing the reader to experience the harshness and desolation of the desert.
• Symbolism: The Sphinx, the sands, the absence of the dove, and the "sightless stars" all carry symbolic weight, representing larger ideas and themes.

Overall Tone:

The tone of the poem is one of melancholy and awe. There's a sense of sadness for what has been lost and broken, but also a profound respect for the enduring power and timelessness of the desert landscape. The vastness and emptiness evoke a feeling of solitude and the insignificance of human presence in the grand scheme of time. The "echoing dreams" in the final line suggest a lingering presence of the past, a whisper of forgotten stories carried on the wind.

In conclusion, the poem is a powerful and evocative depiction of a desert landscape imbued with history and the relentless forces of nature. Through vivid imagery, symbolic language, and a melancholic tone, it explores themes of time, decay, loss, and the enduring power of the natural world.

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Statement & Question:

Alfred North Whitehead was a philosopher who developed process philosophy and it's derivative, process theology. It is a mature and complex philosophy which has grown and developed into many other fields and disciplines. How does this poem express Whiteheadian landscapes?

Response by Google Gemini 2.0:

That's a fascinating question! This poem, while not explicitly referencing Whitehead, resonates deeply with several key aspects of his process philosophy and its concept of "Whiteheadian landscapes." Here's how:

1. Emphasis on Process and Becoming:

• "Morning's rising winds came..." and "Pitched in tuneless streams that rose and fell...": These opening lines immediately establish a dynamic and ever-changing environment. The wind is not static but rising, and the sounds are in constant flux ("rose and fell"). This aligns with Whitehead's core idea that reality is fundamentally composed of processes, not static substances. Everything is in a state of becoming.
• "Under a hot, waxing sun spewing wind-whipped gyres...": This depicts an active interplay between the sun, desert, and wind, as a continuous process of interaction and influence. The sun is "waxing" (becoming more intense), the desert is never still, and the wind is actively shaping the desert's appearance and the environment.
• "Blowing, gritty sands gathered and fled in restless swirls...": This vividly illustrates the constant movement and transformation of the desert landscape. The sands are not fixed entities but are perpetually forming and dissolving patterns.
• "The burning sands ceaselessly re-wove their compositions...": This is a powerful image directly reflecting Whitehead's emphasis on the ongoing creation and recreation of reality. The desert is not a static backdrop but an active participant in a continuous process of self-organization.

2. Interconnectedness and Internal Relations:

• The poem doesn't depict isolated entities but rather a web of interacting elements: wind, sun, sand, the ruined Sphinx, and even the implied human observer. The wind affects the sun's appearance, the sand interacts with the Sphinx, and the observer senses the history embedded in the landscape. This interconnectedness echoes Whitehead's concept of internal relations, where the nature of each entity is partly constituted by its relations to other entities.
• The "stinging presence" of the sands "recalling past chapters read" suggests a connection between the present sensory experience and past events or knowledge, highlighting how the present is influenced by the past.

3. The Primacy of Experience and Feeling:

• "One sensed memories forgotten straining to live.": This line is particularly Whiteheadian. It suggests a level of experience beyond conscious thought, a feeling or prehension of the past embedded within the present environment. Whitehead believed that all actual entities (from electrons to humans) have some form of "experience" or "feeling" of their surroundings and their past. The poem evokes this sense of the past lingering in the present, not as a static memory but as a felt presence.
• The overall sensory richness of the poem – the heat, the sound of the wind, the feel of the sand – emphasizes the importance of experience in shaping our understanding of reality, a central tenet of process philosophy.

4. The Reality of Time and Becoming:

• The ruined Sphinx "measuring time's temporal strands" directly addresses the passage of time and its impact on the world. The broken state of the Sphinx is a testament to the reality of temporal becoming and the erosion of the past.
• "Anchoring eternal rolling tides of forgotten eras" juxtaposes the enduring presence of the Sphinx (even in ruin) with the constant flow of time and the fading of past epochs. This highlights the tension between permanence and change that Whitehead also explored.

5. Aesthetic Appreciation of the World:

• While the landscape is harsh and desolate, the poem's language is rich and evocative, suggesting an aesthetic appreciation for the processes at play. Whitehead believed that the aim of philosophy is to understand the universe in a way that appreciates its inherent beauty and value, even in its most seemingly chaotic or destructive aspects. The poem's careful attention to detail and its evocative imagery suggest such an appreciation.

In summary, this poem expresses Whiteheadian landscapes through its:

• Focus on dynamic processes and dynamic becoming rather than static entities.
• Depiction of interconnectedness and the influence of relationships between elements.
• Evocation of a level of experience and feeling that transcends purely objective observation.
• Acknowledgement of the reality of time and its impact on the world.
• Subtle aesthetic appreciation for the ongoing creative and destructive forces of nature.

While the poet likely wasn't consciously writing within a Whiteheadian framework, the poem's imagery and themes resonate deeply with the core tenets of process philosophy, offering a poetic glimpse into a world understood as a continuous flow of interconnected experiences and becoming. [In actuality, the poet has studied and written on Whitehead's process philosophy for many years; as such, it is so imbued into the poet's thinking that it's structures were naturally reflected when composing Shifting Sands. - R.E. Slater]