river inheritance

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.

From the lintel's carved throat a low liturgy uncurled, letters tolling like patient bells, Villagers leaned their palms into mortar and learned the congregation's cadence—names folding into refrain, The King's fingers traced each cut vowel, coaxing the script to inhale and exhale a solemn breath, Night answered in deep resonance: river and rook repeating the carved benediction until dawn softened

His fingertip traced a consonant and it answered with the clear knock of hammered copper, belltones spilling along the carved face, Smiths rose from straw and mule-sweat and found anvils learning language, each hammerfall a counted syllable, The bloom's scent shifted to smoke and oil; petals dulled, gained patina, folding into thin sheets that sang beneath moonlight, So the village learned to keep

Hammers learned a mother's pulse; each strike slowed into the long breath of home, Flames cupped syllables; molten ribbons swallowed names and cooled into rings that would not forget, Young hands rocked on stools like children, soot on lashes and song threading through the tongs, When shutters closed the iron cradled those whispered words—steadfast, warm, and quietly awake.

They slid the warm rings into the stream at dawn, iron holding syllables to the water's wrist, Names settled like silt and seed—caught in children's hands, whispered again as bread and oath, The last petal loosened, a pale coin on the current; the Monkey King let his story braid with the flow, And so the village's vows became moving earth and speech, ferried to fields and mouths not born and kept.