haiku shards

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.

A petal unbuttoned like a pocket into another city, where afternoon walked upside down, Small moons hawked time in paper cups and teaspoons traded the names of lonely shutters, Lanterns grew legs and spilled their light into coat-pockets; bridges hummed with combed glass, The Monkey King grinned and folded constellations like maps, tucking rooftops into the bloom.

He turned a petal like a page and spoke the names low, each one a small undoing The city bent inward — shutters feathered shut, dogs folded their bodies into the earth Lanterns kept the beat of something like mourning; even the moon swallowed its loudness The bloom held the last syllables like prayers, and the river carried them away like softened coins

A petal falls: small as a stone into dusk. Names make a single ring, then settle into glass. Night counts three tiny breaths, each one a folded bell. The Monkey King keeps the silence like a held-back laugh.

He lets the bloom toll the vanished names—each syllable a small copper bell, Petals return the litany in rounds, repeating hush until hush becomes hymn, Windows cup the sound like hands; smoke reshapes itself into slow replies, His breath measures the mourning, patient and steady, until grief learns the rhythm.

The blossom breaks into three spare breaths, each a flint of winter-syllable. They land—one on hearth, one in the river's throat, one cupped in a child's small palm. Tiny poems settle under tongue and stone, enough to make the night remember. He closes his hand; the lanterns take the names, and the world wakes gentle with that light.