I am dead and in my grave. Let me alone. The seeping of rains down through me, And the reaching of roots down after me, And the skimming of leaves above me, are enough. Let me alone.
You have had your will of me, So wherefore, now, Should your questions creep here to me, And the roots of your doubt reach at me, And your thoughts restively skim and shudder above me? Let me alone.
Would you rifle the grave too? Go away. I have nothing left for your taking. My hair is not gold, but dust now. My eyes are not stars, but stillness. My flesh is not beauty aflame, but very cool. Let me alone.
La nuit qui précéda sa mort Fut la plus courte de sa vie L'idée qu'il existait encore Lui brûlait le sang aux poignets Le poids de son corps l'écœurait Sa force le faisait gémir C'est tout au fond de cette horreur Qu'il a commencé à sourire Il n'avait pas un camarade. Mais des millions et des millions Pour le venger il le savait Et le jour se leva pour lui.
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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.