Spot of Mandelbrot

What means the B?
What means the B?
What do you mean, what means the B?
Well, what means the B?
In Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Ben What? Benot B. Why?
Benoit B Who?
Benoit Be Where?

Benoit B Mandelbrot
But what’s with this B?
For what does it stand?
This lonely interstitial initial?
This mysterious Be
Thrown unceremoniously in the middle
Why must it be Benoit BE Mandlebrot?
Wherefore and whyfore this misbegotten “B”?

Well, maybe this Be is much more than a symbol
Maybe the Be unblocks the swirling sea
And unlocks the key to Julia’s riddle
Maybe the B stands for born
Born born of a shattered mirror
Worn along the battered shore
Of every emanating river
Borders torn from rough contours
Wherever hereafter encounters before
Where each inch contains a mile more
And a Universe unfurls behind every door

Infinity bound up in her embrace
Interred in recursive iterations
Entangled time overgrowing space
From a seed of springtime equations
Let the fractal retrace
Julia’s fractured face
In all her glorious deviations
Just a spot of Mandelbrot
The elf in self
The elf in self
The elf in self
Nature never forgot

Maybe the Be stands for branching
As water and blood course and recurse
Maybe the Be is the be be beginning
Whichever narrator told it first
Maybe the Be is for burgeoning
From the genesis of domino events
Or perhaps the B is merely for beckoning
Your mind toward whatever it meant
Maybe the Be stands for flickering Between
The impossible and the merely unseen
Maybe the Be is for Becoming
One with singularity’s sheen

Mer
Myrrh
Murmuring
Mer murmuring more
Murmuring more meaning
Recursion recurs
Mer murmuring more
More mortal morphemes morphing
Morphemes morphing meaning
More less less more more less
More meaning meaning less
Recursion recurs

More tales
More tall tales
More mortal tales
More immortal tails
Recursion recurs
Tales made by Mer mer mer
Missed misted mysteries
More morphing memories
Murmuring Murmuring
Murmuring

Recursion recurs

Mur mur murmur
Murmuring murmuring
Morphing morphing morphing
More less less more more less
Meaning meaning meaning
Less more more less less
Morphing morphemes
More murky memories
Murmuring murmuring
Murmur mur mur
Recursion recurs
Mer murmurs
Recursion Recurs

Infinity bound up in her embrace
Interred in recursive iterations
Entangled time overgrowing space
From a seed of springtime equations
Let the fractal retrace
Julia’s fractured face
In all her glorious deviations
Just a spot of Mandelbrot
The elf in self
The elf in self
The elf in self
Nature never forgot

Went out tilting at windmills
Across groundless molehills
Hangin’ on for dear life
To the edge of my skull

Tried to hitch a ride
To some kind of wild spectacle
Something absolutely atypical
And yet cosmically universal

Then my thumb went numb
And my tongue went dumb
Waiting for some answer to come
So I followed a trail of diamond crumbs
Straight to the edge of Elysium

Well, the paradox of paradise
Is that Heaven’s just a narrow slice
Without the underworld’s fire
The whole globe would be on ice

Every star becomes a dot
Each story told a mere subplot
Just a spot of Mandelbrot
Flashing past in candid shots
Of scenes time long ago forgot
Blinking lonely nodes
Linking to the motherlode
Wading in the flow
 just waiting to go
Wading in the flow
 just waiting to go

I entered a 3-D flowchart
Elegant with gold-inlaid art
Where you end up depends
On where you start
For destiny has got
A lot of moving parts

Then a siren rang a bell
She said I know but will not tell
So what if we spin here
For a spell
Upon this unhinged carousel
And reflect our paths
In parallel
Reflect our paths
In parallel

For I am Julia Mandelbrot
And I am the model-maker
Replicating all of Nature
Far too expansive to capture
Rendering the big picture
Delivering it in miniature

Every star becomes a dot
Each story told a mere subplot
Just a spot of Mandelbrot
Flashing past in candid shots
Of scenes time long ago forgot
Blinking lonely nodes
Linking to the motherlode
Wading in the flow
 just waiting to go
Wading in the flow
 just waiting to go

Well, models are exhibitionist
Curving contours lightly kissed
Treating every eye to a tryst
Lingering on each little twist
Exposing more than I’d care to exist

Drawing the Universe to scale
Tracing snakes swallowing their tails
Galaxies poured into Grails
Recreating creation’s trail
Down to the finest and last detail

We spun all the dials for a while
And turned that inch into many long miles
Still I remained an empty exile
Chasing the impossible endless smile

Then I drew a bridge to forever
Made of maybes and what-ifs
And measured howevers
Whiled away ages in the endeavor
She patted and tapped my head and said
Well, that design is very clever
But you’re gonna need a bigger lever
Yeah, you’re gonna need a bigger lever

Every star becomes a dot
Each story told a mere subplot
Just a spot of Mandelbrot
Flashing past in candid shots
Of scenes time long ago forgot
Blinking lonely nodes
Linking to the motherlode
Wading in the flow
 just waiting to go
Wading in the flow
 just waiting to go