playful cascade
Wild Flower of the Monkey King
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
The bloom began to inventory the impossible: receipts for storms, a ledger of vanished streets and small apologies It listed a moon with pockets, a compass that read which childhood you'd be tomorrow, a church spattered in origami birds Rivers were filed under "waiting," mountains cataloged by the taste of their shadows, borders stamped with lullaby signatures The Monkey King watched the list sign
So the bloom began to pare the ledgers into three-breath prayers, each entry a small sky pocketed moon emptied river holds a child's name until morning opens its palm origami church bows
The bloom threaded receipts into a litany, columns folding like hymnals and ink rising into voice Invoices chanted storms paid in thunder; the moon's emptied pocket tinkled with small forgiving coins He watched as debits softened into refrains; names once stamped returned as swellings of mercy Paper prayed itself blank; the origami church nodded and opened a choir of creases that let borders unsew
The river tucks each ledger into its current like a child, ink exhaling into hush and small tides of vowels Petals become tiny skiffs; the bloom rows them slow, counting commas until sleep folds every margin closed The origami church answers in low creases, its choir rocking the horizon until mountains forget to be sharp The Monkey King lifts his map and feels the world lull itself toward morning,
Creases open like throats; folded voices exhale whole hymns of paper, Maps unroll into staves and the river writes its name in clefs of rushing ink, Petal-skiffs take alto while mountains answer low—valleys hum with stitched bass, The Monkey King folds to that pulse; borders slip like spent stamps into the refrain
Margins giggle: receipts peel free and wobble like new leaves, misnaming kings with crooked signatures The origami choir folds a hymn into paper boats that guffaw and race the river's ledgered grin Maps tuck themselves behind the Monkey King's ear, whispering detours that make compasses blush and spin Petal-skiffs sprout listening flaps; ledgers exchange ink-smiles, rearranging history into riddle
Receipts spill like bright beads down the river's shoulder, each one laughing itself toward the sea Petal-skiffs tip and send a merry rush that shakes signatures into soft confetti of relief The origami choir folds its last hymn into a hush that is also a beginning, edges softened to forgiveness The Monkey King opens both hands; the bloom becomes light and the world sighs new maps into being
— The End —