luminous ascent

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 cracked like lacquer and a fleet of small doors sailed free, each a neighborhood unmooring itself into possibility Furrows loosened into linen lungs that breathed out markets and swans; clay chimneys grew legs and paced toward the river's first name The Monkey King's grin unraveled into paper cranes that flapped whole houses into the sky, stitching roofs into constellations of sale and祈

He tuned his grin to cymbals; paper cranes beat heartbeats into the night and lanterns learned benediction steps Stalls yawned open as altars: a wheel of petitions, a tarot-tea spin, jugglers whispering prayers between each toss Children in painted faces traded fortunes like pennies, their laughter braided into the liturgy of the midway Priests in sequined sleeves burned confetti incense; the fair

The midway inhaled as if the altars themselves had taught it to be quiet; cymbals paused mid-grin, stalls cupped their mouths Children folded into small saints, their laughter braided into rosary-rhymes and set like pennies on the sill Incense rose to keep count — each curl a ledger of vows, each ember a little yes returned into the palms of beggars Beneath that held breath the Monkey King's bloom

He placed the bloom like a benediction between palms; the fair collapsed into a single inhalation, Lanterns bowed their heads; coin and ribbon were offered in the quiet clasp of hands, Children traded confidences without words, pressing light like bread into one another's palms, The petals hummed back low as an altar-voice, naming kinship in syllables of shared breath.

The bloom slipped upward like a borrowed moon, alleys unspooling into a spiral stair of lanterns and laundry Cranes turned into treads; awnings stretched like sails and tugged whole stalls into the curvature of sky Children climbed the tender steps as if rehearsing a spell, their laughter leaving braided tracery across the blue The river, astonished, unrolled itself into a silver ribbon that ferri

The lantern-stair tightened like a rope of fire; children hauled the alleys until the earth grew light underfoot, Cranes unpicked into new constellations; stalls and roofs arranged themselves into patient maps of home, At height the Monkey King opened his palms and the bloom became a moon scribed with names, each petal a pointing compass, The river read that moon aloud; vanished thresholds replied