Buddha Gallery: Pictures & Poems

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Collection of Nick Brinkman

Hungrily, I reach into the soup pot And pick out half-cooked vegetables. Will my stomach burn Like the monk Shih Tao's When he ate half-roasted taro root? On the road to enlightenment It is the heart That is supposed to be aflame. Honorable Mention, The Poets' Dinner, 2000

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Sketching red spring lilies, A dot of brilliant green Attracts my eye. The first of the ten thousand things I paint this year turns out to be an aphid!

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Four Versions of Tea in the Tea Garden I. Looking at the gnarled pine Crisp cookies on her plate Turn soft and moist In winter tea house rain. II. In winter rain The park is gray and black With one gold Ginko.

III. Waiting for traffic to subside She warms herself with tea. The yellow Ginko And the blackened pine against gray rain. IV. Consumed with watching conifers As Ginko leaves slide to the ground, Her world is neutral Gray in cold rain. To warm herself, she drinks hot tea Under the wide eaves of the tea house And, in love with gray and gold, Forgets her seasoned snacks and fortune cookies Softening in a devouring mist.

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Listen to all things. Reflect on all things. Follow my own heart.

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Collection of Eric Allman

My own heart Makes me joyous and unafraid. I meet it Every now and then Along the road. After twenty-one years of casting coins And dividing yarrow stalks I am still the fool Entering at the first line.

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I needed an amulet last week To help me work at my painting studio. BE A MAD MONK I wrote Thinking of Shih T'ao and Jung Kwang. How can I be a mad monk When I am applying for office work And paying bills? You may not know know WHAT You are, But you can know THAT You are The old books tell me As I sit in my kitchen Scrawling poems in the near dark.