The Mandelbrot Room

Everyone walks slowly into a brilliant room.

From a distance you see colors flashing, orange,

grapefruit, lime, opening into another equally strange which

is yet the same room. These crystal rooms grow smaller

as you look toward the swirl the dark horizon but as

you walk toward them wondering

which one to enter

you see each is

the same so it doesn’t

matter which you choose.

The farther you walk the more

you notice the sinuous chambers

curving. People you know stroll slowly,

patiently, their faces watchful, like you

considering, strangely attracted, or hesitant,

bemused, thinking how each comes from a dark

shuttered room, friends and enemies alike,

preoccupied, struck by the smell of ripe fruit.

Each person sits in what for each seems

to be the center of the room that seems

just large enough. As you sit in the center you close

your eyes, just as they do. You see the curving facets

that grow into fresh designs each revealing another, as if

each were a new, cool touch or pulse of blood more calm

or each a face on the diamond of this concentration

and you can sense each

will soon break

the lure of iteration,

will be free to go, at home

in this room where

colors flash, fig,

apple, pear,

plum.