clockwork hymn

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.

Petals became small moons and slipped between the King's fingers like lullaby coins, A street unstitched itself and shutters took wing, reading each house as an open eye, Chairs learned to breathe and sung the rooms' names into the seams of a paper sky, Under that slow unreason the bloom arranged impossible neighborhoods and the night obeyed.

A pebble-laugh skitters down the avenue; shutters clap like surprised hands, Window-glasses wobble into giggles, lamplight hiccups into skipping stones, Pavement unfolds into hopscotch islands; doorsteps take tiny, delighted leaps, From the bloom spill paper boats of mischief, neighborhoods bobbing, bright and buoyant.

He folds his vowels into the blossom; it answers in creased measures, a steady pleat of syllables Petals flick like leaf-pages, each slap a clipped name—short, insistent, braided into refrain Windows clap soft wrists in metered hush; alleys answer with stapled breathing and syncopation The town reads itself aloud, a paper psalm whose folded heartbeat keeps memory upright through night

He settles the blossom to his breast; tiny ratchets begin to count the long breaths of alleys, Petals click each name in brass—a small machinery of mercy threading shutters and lanterns into place, Streets curl like watches rewound, each coil a ledger of footsteps, hands, and lullabies, So the night concludes in a gear-made benediction, the final note wound and kept warm in the Monkey King's palm.