I went down into the desert To meet Elijah— Arisen from the dead. I thought to find him in an echoing cave; For so my dream had said.
I went down into the desert To meet John the Baptist. I walked with feet that bled, Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold. I spied foul fiends instead.
I went down into the desert To meet my God. By him be comforted. I went down into the desert To meet my God. And I met the devil in red.
I went down into the desert To meet my God. O Lord my God, awaken from the dead! I see you there, your thorn-crown on the ground, I see you there, half-buried in the sand. I see you there, your white bones glistening bare The carrion-birds a-wheeling round your head.
Now come and haunt my quiet room With light and shade and red-rose bloom: Light of your healing eyes and shade Of dark hair free from knot and braid. Like lips with some sweet word that part A red rose opens on your heart.
Out of your peace be manifest, Into the dulness of my rest. I shall not win at all my heaven If no least glimmer of you leaven My loneliness. Come to me, Dear, Lest I should grow contented here.
Brighten again my dusty books With kindness of your gracious looks Renew the youth of my dim air With your deep smile, that is aware Of patience (borage in life's wine), And stronger love than this of mine.
Ay, stronger love that would descend Into the pit to save a friend, Or serve, not saving; love that cleaves Even when faith no more believes, I love till death, past judgment you — Is He not kind that made you true?
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Track 1
How this picture is made
What a fractal is
A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. The large form and the small form are the same kind of thing. A poem can be drawn that way. The shape of the whole comes from the shape of the lines.
Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.
How the boundary is drawn
The number under the picture is the poem constant. It is read from the build of the lines: their length, how uneven they are, the size of the stanzas, the share of vowels, and the way the lines end. A new word moves the number when it changes that build. The same poem always gives the same number.
Drawn on its own, that number sits in a quiet part of the plane, and most poems would look like the same soft disk. So the number is carried outward along its own direction until it meets the edge of the Mandelbrot set, where the shape turns sharp. The picture is the Julia set of that meeting place.
Each point on the canvas is folded again and again by one small rule. Points that stay near the rule form the dark interior. Points that rush away become the coloured bands. The hue comes from the poem constant, and the brightest bands turn toward gold. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.
What the branching signifies
Branching draws the poem as a tree. Each turn follows a line, and every smaller branch repeats that pattern. A longer line reaches farther. The letters at the start of a line bend the next turn. A higher share of vowels opens the branches wider.
The trunk takes its colour from the poem constant and warms toward gold at the tips. When the poem has more than one stanza, gold forks leave the trunk. Each fork is a stanza beyond the first, up to three. The tree divides where the poem divides. One stanza remains a single trunk.