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 Alice Corbin
−0.6745 + 0.2417i
Drawing the boundary…
−0.6503 + 0.2660i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Alice Corbin
Love came into his secret house,
His tower of glass, at the fall of night,
Where there is neither sun nor moon,
Wind nor wave, but a world of light.
Love came into his secret house,
Deep in the world, under the wave,
And the stars fell down from the trembling roof,
And the harp that Etain gave
Quivered and wakened and all its strings
Whispered and sang with a wild delight,
When Love came into his secret house,
His tower of glass, at the fall of night.
Broad, high yew hedges flank the flowers, and border
An old, smooth lawn where, fashioned grimly stiff.
Two knights — in close-clipped box — keep ancient order,
O'er shaven dragon, hound and hippogriff;
And there,
When the June air
At dusk is cool and fair.
And the great roses strengthen on their stalks,
Down the long path, beset
With heaven-scented, haunting mignonette.
The gardeners say,
A little grey
Ghost-lady walks!
I haven't seen her, haven't heard her legend.
Pale little shade, only the rumour tells
That 'tis her wont to wander to the hedge-end,
And vanish near the Canterbury Bells;
And so
I do not know
What sends her to and fro —
Murder, may be, or broken heart, or gold.
I like to fancy most
That she is just some little lady's ghost
Who loved her flowers
And quiet hours
In Junes of old!
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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