Poem fractal
0.046 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.
0.1532 − 0.0983i
Drawing the boundary…
by Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan
0.1869 − 0.1301i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
If I went past you down this hill
And you had never seen my face before,
Would all your being feel the sudden thrill
You said it felt, once more?
If I went past you through this shaw,
Would be all a-quiver at the brush
Of my trailed garments; would the sudden hush
You said the black-birds' voices had in awe
Of my first coming, fall upon the place
Once more, if you had never seen my face
Nor ever heard my passing by before,
And nought had passed of all that was of yore?
by Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan
When, poor in all but hope and love,
I clasped thee to my faithful heart;
For wealth and fame I vowed to rove,
That we might meet no more to part!
Years have gone by — long weary years
Of toil, to win thee comfort now —
Of ardent hopes — of sickening fears —
And wealth is mine — but where art thou?
Fame’s dazzling dreams, for thy dear sake,
Those brighter than before to me;
I clung to all I deemed could make
My burning heart more worthy thee.
Years have gone by — the laurel droops
In mockery o’er my joyless brow:
A conquered world before me stoops,
And Fame is mine — but where art thou?
In life’s first hours, despised and lone,
I wandered through the busy crowd;
But now that life’s best hopes are gone,
They greet with pride and murmurs loud.
Oh! for thy voice! thy happy voice,
To breathe its laughing welcome now;
Wealth, fame, and all that should rejoice,
To me are vain — for where art thou?
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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