quiet mending

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.

The bloom answered not in ink but in voices: a ripple of whistles along the ridge, harmonizing with the orchard's breaths Children learned the pattern like a prayer, stepping barefoot on echo-strings that braided light into speech Old women stitched the petals' syllables to lullabies, and with each chorus the carved names shimmered new hues Farmers hummed back the river's ledger, turning each skir

k—farmers hummed back the river's ledger, turning each skir into a low loop that tugged at the throat, petals answered in a weary echo, the same small cadence folding over itself until it wore thin, names became the measure by which the village learned to breathe; each repetition leaned toward longing, the Monkey King held his lantern-flower as it kept calling the past aloud, a soft, unending ache

He flicked a petal like a coin; it winked and hopped, scattering compass-songs into the dusk. The carved names untied themselves into braids of laughter and skittered down the river's spine. Children doubled over mid-chant as their syllables swapped places with a goat's bleat and the miller's vow. Stone letters blurred into riddles; the ledger of the world hiccupped, then grinned and played along.

The bloom pressed petals like small hands across the mill's split axle, sewing silence into steady turns, Where syllables had leapt into goats, each sound rewound itself—vows nesting back into human throats, Granite letters grazed by soft petals dulled their corners, names breathing in easier, less like claims than lull, The Monkey King watched, palm warm, as the lantern-flower stitched dusk to am