Leonardo Da Vinci Poem by Sheena Blackhall

His singing would have transfixed the great God Pan
He fashioned a silver lyre, like a horse's skull

Composer of music, geometrician, sculptor,
Designer of mills and engines, model maker
Architect, draughtsman, painter, anatomist
Military engineer and costume designer

Love child of a peasant, ambidextrous, witty
Dyslexic and vegetarian. Keeper of horses and servants
Bought caged birds in the market to set them free
Studied planets and each herb's property

Four years he painted the lady, Mona Lisa
While she sat, men came to jest, to keep her merry

In his room were reptiles, lizards great and small
Crickets, serpents, butterflies, and bats
And dead men, to dissect, death in his nostrils daily

And he loved bizarre heads on a pair of shoulders
Would follow a man for a day to catch his likeness
He made a lion which walked for several steps
Then opened its breast, revealing a heart of lilies

He died in the caring arms of the King of France
His protector and patron,
Leaving behind his paintings, his true children