You’re not a believer,

and if there’d been a chance,

you know you’d have lost it

on the long trek up through the caves

amid throngs of people snapping photos,

hawking souvenirs, and eating lunches

at the feet of stone Buddhas.

Still, when you enter this hall,

the arhats, larger than life, look down

from their perches like bronze ghosts

whose eyes compel you to respond:

this one elicits a formal nod,

that one requires a wink,

still another makes you laugh out loud,

forgetting how foolish you might appear

if anyone were there to see.

You try to walk more quickly –

there are five hundred of them, after all –

but they insist on slower steps,

continuing to engage you

in a conversation you never meant to have,

until you find the one who calms you

to the core, forces you to accept

your heretical soul for what it is –

a life no worse, no better than any other.

Carolyn Locke of Troy teaches English at Mount View High School. This poem is one of a series that grew out of her travels in China on a Fulbright grant.