Poem fractal
0.017 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.
−0.2383 − 0.6449i
Drawing the boundary…
−0.2504 − 0.6328i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy father's watching the sheep,
Thy mother's shaking the dreamland tree,
And down drops a little dream for thee.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!
The large stars are the sheep,
The little stars are the lambs, I guess,
The bright moon is the shepherdess.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy Savior loves His sheep;
He is the Lamb of God on high
Who for our sakes came down to die.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Grumly ploughed his field, she said,
Upon the threshold of day;
And the sun rose up in a cloud of fire
Over the hills away.
And two white doves came down, she said,
And bathed in the mearing spring,
And Grumly reined his horses in
To watch so strange a thing.
Grumly ploughed his field, she said,
Upon the heel of day;
And the sun sank down in a cloud of fire
Over the hills away.
And the two white doves came down, she said,
And bathed in the mearing spring;
And Grumly took a jack-stone up,
And did a murderous thing…
It is many a year ago, she said,
And Grumly's field is mine:
He ploughs the Meadow of the Dead
Where sun will never shine.
But still the water runs, she said,
And still the spring is blest;
And daylight whitens in the east
And reddens in the west.
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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