chanting refrain

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—

The flower exhaled a low, rocking hush that braided night into a mother's coil, Petals unspooled lull and ledger both, naming hearths until the smoke forgot its hurry, Lanterns bobbed like slow-heart answers; each name folded into the palm of sleep, The Monkey King's thumb kept the beat, patient as moon-breath, coaxing cities soft and small.

He rocks the blossom in his palms, each sway a slow, deliberate ache, Petals fold like sleepy lips, taught to sing the names of vanished rooms, Lantern-streets inhale; shutters answer with the hush of hands that used to hold, Night bends into a gentle mourning, rocking the map until its edges fold.

He counts them again—It remembers our names, each syllable struck like a small bell, Petals answer in a hush that turns mourning into a slow, repeated hymn, Lantern-voices swell and fall, houses breathing the ledger back into the dark, The bloom keeps naming; in that persistent naming the lost are held and made holy.

He cradles the blossom like an altar; each name tolls, a small bell swung into the throat of night, Petals answer in strict countersong, call and response folding into the vaulted hollows of bridges, Stone and river reply in patient voices, window-frames and sleepers lending their timbre until the town reads itself aloud, Repetition consecrates the lost: each echo a soft rubric, a vow murmured and

reclaimed into chorus; petals drum the syllables back like a low litany, again. He counts—one name, two—each enunciation a pebble tossed into the town's sleeping well, again. Windows answer in measured knocks; rooftops and river join the woven refrain, again. Night takes the pattern, repeats it until memory is an instrument tuned and struck, again.