moss liturgy

A wild flower flickered in the Monkey King's palm—small as proof, loud as a crown He taught it tricks of wind and riddle-speech, to cart the dusk and tumble kingdoms down Its petals rewrote maps: veins as poems, each fold a compass that makes old borders frown So from that stubborn bloom a new legend grew, stitching history to song and earning its own renown

At dusk the Monkey King cupped the bloom like lantern-light for vanished vows, Each petal exhaled a roster of ruins, names folded into the hush of boughs, It remembers our names, soft as ash, murmured into the river's slow mouth, Farms unlatched their memories; the moon stitched back the silhouettes of towns, It remembers our names, a reed-song passing under bridges and through crowns, The flower—

He pressed a petal to granite; its filigree learned the patience of chisels, Syllables sank like pebbles into the ledgers of rock, rain polishing each name into claim, Hamlets gathered around carved lines, reading the bloom's verdict as both law and altar, Where petals became inscription, the river taught itself to spell them with its current.

He pressed a petal to the lintel; its script slipped down like a held breath and shut its mouth, Villages learned to count by that quiet, marking years in a single, careful exhalation, Promises cooled to a stone's patience, edges softened by the slow grammar of moss and rain, Centuries moved like reverent callers, touching each carved name and leaving it to sleep deep in the hill.

Moss folded into the carved names like a choir settling into hymn, threads of green humming low, Its fronds counted each syllable, slow as prayer beads, secreting moist consonants onto stone, Villagers came at dawn to read the verdant verses, stroking letters until the town remembered how to speak, Even the Monkey King listened, letting the bloom and the hill administer the quiet sacraments.