Da Vinci & His Bodies (new episode) – Human Voices Wake Us

Around the year 1509, Leonardo da Vinci began his great anatomical work, dissecting upwards of thirty human bodies and making drawings of what he saw. Tonight’s episode is a poem about that experience – all that was isolating, exhilarating, gruesome, beautiful. How did Leonardo go past art, and past science, in search of something stranger, human, divine? The poem is also being published simultaneously in the first issue of The Basilisk Tree. Many thanks to its editor, Bryan Helton (who is also a great poet himself), for taking the poem. Make sure to take a look at the other poems, and perhaps submit some of your own. Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

1. Da Vinci & His Bodies (new episode) 29:31
2. Anthology: Poems for Spring (new episode) 38:06
3. Anthology: Poems on How to Live 59:51
4. Anthology: Love Poems from the Last Four Centuries 59:36
5. Advice from Charles Dickens & Alice Munro 45:05

When superior people hear of the Way,
they carry it out with diligence.
When middling people hear of the Way,
it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not.
When lesser people hear of the Way,
they ridicule it greatly.
If they didn’t laugh at it,
it wouldn’t be the Way.
So there are constructive sayings on this:
The Way of illumination seems dark,
the Way of advancement seems retiring,
the Way of equality seems to categorize;
higher virtue seems empty,
great purity seems ignominious,
broad virtue seems insufficient,
constructive virtue seems careless.
Simply honesty seems changeable,
great range has no boundaries,
great vessels are finished late;
the great sound has a rarefied tone,
the great image has no form,
the Way hides in namelessness.
Only the Way can enhance and perfect.

– Thomas Cleary

When superior people hear of the Way
they follow it with devotion
when average people hear of the Way
they wonder if it exists
when inferior people hear of the Way
they laugh out loud
if they didn’t laught
it wouldn’t be the Way
hence these sayings arose
the brightest path seems dark
the path leading forward seems backward
the smoothest path seems rough
the highest virtue low
the whitest white pitch-black
the greatest virtue wanting
the staunchest virtue timid
the truest truth uncertain
the perfect square without corners
the perfect tool without uses
the perfect sound hushed
the perfect image without form
for the Tao is hidden and nameless
but because it’s the Tao
it knows how to start and how to finish

– Red Pine

When men of service hearken to the Way,
The lofty strive to see it applied,
The average cannot seem to decide,
While the lower sort grandly deride.
Their derision makes Dao’s reputation.
So the Words of Guidance says:
“Seers of the Way seem not to see,
And those who advance, to retreat.
The smoothest path seems unsure,
Honored virtue seems undistinguished,
Ample virtue unqualified,
Resolute virtue undependable,
Stable virtue unfaithful.
Pure white seems impure,
Broad planes lack angles,
Great works take time,
Mighty voices rarely sound,
Grand vision has no set design,
Unknown the Way and thus unnamed.”
But the Way it is, the Way alone,
That brings first motions to fruition.

– Moss Roberts