I CAVALLI DI LEONARDO Poem by Rutger Kopland

All those sketches he left behind -

endless series of repetitions: bunches of muscles, sinews,
knuckles, joints, the entire machinery
of driving-belts and levers with which
a horse moves,

and out of thousands of hair-thin little lines, the skin
almost invisibly gently disappearing into the paper
of ears and eyelids, nostrils,
skin of the soul -

he must have wanted to find out how a horse
is made and have realized
it can't be done,

how the secret of a horse grew and grew
beneath his pencil.

Made the most splendid designs, studied them,
discarded them.