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Note: this is a section from a longer poem of mine called A Process Theology in Rhyme, included in my book, The Logic of Rhyme, available on Amazon.
—Concrescence—
It was Whitehead who was the first to show,
How all actualities come and go,
In bursts first of presence, then of absence,
In fast, fleeting moments of concrescence.
It is said that concrescence occurs all at once;
This is bewildering, and not only for a dunce.
Genetic analysis can divide it into phases,
With little muddle when intellect blazes,
And, of this species, we can then track
The outcome to its origin, all the way back.
A concrescence begins by conforming to the past,
Then prepares a presentation that will only last,
As a contribution that — to the future — will be passed
We can say that concrescence
Is beautiful in formal essence,
And then, also say that it’s true,
There’s beauty in actuality, too.
A concrescence in action is a veritable whiz:
It causes, what isn’t, to become, what actually is.
It takes all the king’s horses
And, yes, all the king’s men,
To put an actual entity together —
Again, and again, and again.
In creative advances that are . . .
A gain, and a gain, and a gain.
In essence,
An actual entity is
Concrescence;
That’s what actual entities do,
Concresce,
Into actuality and . . . the ever new.
And so there you have it, good for you,
Beautifully true, and without much ado,
In Nature’s Who’s Who (in all Creation)
Concrescence gets . . . a standing ovation!
HyC