Buddha's Face, a Triptych: a Collaboration of Three Poets

Photo Dharma from Sadao, Thailand, CC BY 2.0 Wikimedia Commons

Buddha and Jesus: Gap Years

Siddartha Gotama, did you travel,
Goatskin bag, begging bowl,
Dusty sandals, orange robes,
Finding the coast of Australia,
60,000 years people living the Dreamtime,
Did you sit with an old shaman
Under the shade of a gum tree ?

Your visage serene
still  lovingly wrapped
in an ancient tree in Siam.  

Jesus, in those missing years
Were you in India
Finding freedom from suffering
Among the Buddha’s disciples
On the banks of the Ganges ?

Your bloodstained face impressed
on the shroud of Turin

Joep Rambouts


Brevity
a mirror cinquain

Buddha,
transient art
or eternal spirit,
enlightenment or carver’s art?
divine
human
creation formed,
gazing into the Now
in brevity of centuries.
Wake up!

Victoria Crawford


Moments

I.
Who are you?
What are you?
Merely stone in wood?
More than human?
You breathe nature
though you breathe not.

II.
Michelangelo
saw David
in a block of marble,
Who saw Buddha
nestled in the roots
of that banyan tree?
Who saw you in full detail--
hair braided,
eyes closed,
lips resting soft,
one upon the other?
Was it I?

III.
Matter and form,
perfect unity:
ancient tree,
honoured image,
harmony,
Buddha.

IV.
He sleeps
I daydream
He is awake
I am asleep.

V.
"What are you?"
asked the five ascetics,
"Are you a ghost?
Are you a spirit?
Are you a demon?"
I look upon that face
looking out at me,
that tree birthing that face,
and I hear your answer,
"I am awake!”

VI.
All reality awakes
to its true nature,
its true being,
its enlightenment,
moving from
that which can be
to that which is,
and out of doubt.

VII.
Wherever I go,
there I am,
Buddha,
Enlightened,
Awake.

George W. Ross


Three lives wandering six of the seven continents, meet and, charmed by the Muse of Poetry, collaborate.  Joel Rombouts, originating in S. Africa, S. America, and Australia is the author of a novel, short stories, and poems set in Australasia when he isn’t tending his mango farm.  George W. Ross hails from Boston, but raised his family in Costa Rica and San Francisco before retiring to Thailand where he writes poetry and performs at the Magic Poetry Theatre.  Victoria Crawford moseys around in retirement writing and doing needlework.  Individually and collaboratively the three have been published in journals such as Parousia, ColdNoon, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Lyric, and performed at the Magic Poetry Theatre.