My Troubles
I wrote down my troubles every day;
And after a few short years,
When I turned to the heart-aches passed away,
I read them with smiles, not tears.
Poem fractal
0.011 apart. A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.
This number is read from the build of the lines. The bright edge is that number, carried outward until the pattern repeats.
0.3205 − 0.3721i
Drawing the boundary…
0.3105 − 0.3759i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
I wrote down my troubles every day;
And after a few short years,
When I turned to the heart-aches passed away,
I read them with smiles, not tears.
O where are you going? To Scarborough fair,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Remember me to one who lives there,
She once was a true love of mine.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Without any seam or needlework,
Then she shall be a true love of mine.
Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Where never a drop of water fell,
Then she shall be a true love of mine.
Tell her to dry it on yonder heath,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
Where never the rain nor the dew hath scotched,
Then she shall be a true love of mine.
Have you been to Scarborough fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Remember me to one who lives there,
For once she was a true love of mine.
Tell him to find me an acre of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Between the salt water and the sea strand,
Then he shall be a true love of mine.
Tell him to plow it with a ram’s horn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
And sow it all over with one peppercorn,
Then he shall be a true love of mine.
Tell him to reap it with a sickle of leather,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
And bind it all up in a bunch of heather,
Then he shall be a true love of mine.
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.
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.
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.
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