map of petals

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.

A hairline opened where petal met stone, a seam tasting air like an old wound remembering rain, From that seam a green tongue thrust—tiny as rebellion, patient as weather—unfurling syllables into shoots, The split bloom stitched its fracture with light; veins became ladders for sap and whispered cartographies, Walls leaned toward the new seam; mortar loosened its grammar, and names pushed up like—

Names rose like soft mounds, mossing over with evening, each syllable a quiet stone Roofs exhaled; chimneys sealed their calendars, folding anniversaries into hush The bloom dimmed to a single breath, a benediction pressed against the world's brow He held that little dusk against his palm, counting the litany until the valley slept

Night's seam loosens; a pale filament slips from the bloom and pulls the east like a curtain. Petals unfurl into ladders of light, each rung a name turning gold against cold roofs. Chimneys cough up syllables; kitchens answer with steam that tastes of childhood addresses. The river re-reads the carved ledger and scatters its letters into bright, obedient eddies. Villagers blink sleep from their be

beds; roofs yawned and rose into impossible silhouettes—teapots, fishbones, staircases made of moon, chimneys bowed into pagodas and telephones sprouted balconies where swallows paid rent, the skyline rewrote itself like a fevered map of petals and glass, windows singing villagers' names back into the air, he held the bloom as towers tilted into a circus of geometry, the town's horizon folding a f

He set the bloom in the town square; its hush ironed the fevered towers back into ovens and porches, The petal-atlas folded like a weather-book, each crease sliding names home to thresholds and hearth-stones, Chimneys unlearned pagodas and telephones forgot their balconies; the river braided the last carved letters into bed, He watched the final petal fall—small as a seed of story—and the valley,,