As silent as a mirror is believed Realities plunge in silence by . . .
I am not ready for repentance; Nor to match regrets. For the moth Bends no more than the still Imploring flame. And tremorous In the white falling flakes Kisses are,— The only worth all granting.
It is to be learned— This cleaving and this burning, But only by the one who Spends out himself again.
Twice and twice (Again the smoking souvenir, Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again. Until the bright logic is won Unwhispering as a mirror Is believed.
Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry Shall string some constant harmony,— Relentless caper for all those who step The legend of their youth into the noon.
Whatever's good or bad or both Is surely better than the none; There's grace in either love or loathe; Sunlight, or freckles on the sun.
The worst and best are both inclined To snap like vixens at the truth; But, O, beware the middle mind That purrs and never shows a tooth!
Beware the smooth ambiguous smile That never pulls the lips apart; Salt of pure and pepper of vile Must season the extremer heart.
A pinch of fair, a pinch of foul. And bad and good make best of all; Beware the moderated soul That climbs no fractional inch to fall.
Reason's a rabbit in a hutch, And ecstasy's a were-wolf ghost; But, O, beware the nothing-much And welcome madness and the most!
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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.