Poem fractal
0.034 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.
by Hart Crane
−0.4115 − 0.0129i
Drawing the boundary…
−0.3880 − 0.0380i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Hart Crane
The lights that travel on her spectacles
Seldom, now, meet a mirror in her eyes.
But turning, as you may chance to lift a shade
Beside her and her fernery, is to follow
The zigzags fast around dry lips composed
To darkness through a wreath of sudden pain.
—So, while fresh sunlight splinters humid green
I have known myself a nephew to confusions
That sometimes take up residence and reign
In crowns less grey—O merciless tidy hair!
How many thousands are wakening now!
Some to the songs from the forest bough,
To the rustling of leaves at the lattice pane,
To the chiming fall of the early rain.
And some, far out on the deep mid-sea,
To the dash of the waves in their foaming glee,
As they break into spray on the ship's tall side,
That holds through the tumult her path of pride.
And some—oh, well may their hearts rejoice!—
To the gentle sound of a mother's voice:
Long shall they yearn for that kindly tone,
When from the board and the hearth 'tis gone.
And some, in the camp, to the bugle's breath,
And the tramp of the steed on the echoing heath,
And the sudden roar of the hostile gun,
Which tells that a field must ere night be won.
And some, in the gloomy convict cell,
To the dull deep note of the warning bell,
As it heavily calls them forth to die,
When the bright sun mounts in the laughing sky.
And some to the peal of the hunter's horn,
And some to the din from the city borne,
And some to the rolling of torrent floods,
Far midst old mountains and solemn woods.
So are we roused on this checker'd earth:
Each unto light hath a daily birth;
Though fearful or joyous, though sad or sweet,
Are the voices which first our upspringing meet.
But one must the sound be, and one the call,
Which from the dust shall awaken us all:
One!— but to sever'd and distant dooms,
How shall the sleepers arise from the tombs?
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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