My fingers trailed the prayer wheels,
wondering which God was listening
as I left whirling colours behind.
The clatter of carved dragons, birds,
some other animal, a tourist breaking
the sacred silence in the mountain.
Five temples, five days, surrounded by muddy
water, surrounded by cloudy air. I found
myself, nodding in reverence as my guide
extoled stories taught by her mother, and
her mother’s mother. Flying tigers, flying
monks, vacant tombs. I left my shoes
at the threshold. The timber, cold
hard beneath my disbelieving
sole. Her ernest eyes, gentle voice,
speaking fact, fiction, tales she
believed. A convincing book of miracles,
pictures, healing. Would I have, the same
awe while walking in Israel, the dusty
paths where Jesus strode. Was history
a placebo? Was faith, merely imagination?
I held my laughter, watching a British
woman. How strange, how sobering,
as she ran around the compound,
bright, pink phallus strapped with red
ribbons to her body. Her desperation,
a baby. Perhaps she believed in fertility
Gods. Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps,
a miracle, ten thousand miles
from home. It is easy to see shapes
in the mountain mist. A dead father, a baby,
a flying tiger. But who could ignore the miracle
of faith, of strangers heaving granite idols
to the peaks of creation. Like Jesus,
heaving the cross to the peaks of Calvary.
The Bible, Quran, Tripitaka, God’s
word, translated by human tongues. Taught
by human priests, human rulers. God
on Earth. The cold spread from the crown
of my head, to the soles of my feet. Blessed
water, tinkling down my neck. Somehow
I still wished, or prayed, for prosperity,
health, wisdom, as the bells chimed
and the monks chanted, amidst the smoky incense
of a distant world.
