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I. The Ridge and the Pears

The peak sat high in a crown of white,

His teacher had warned him: "Travel light.

Fill not your pack with the heavy and vain,

For a burdened back is a journey in pain."

Near the rocky ridge, sweet pears hung low,

Enough to fuel where he needed to go.

He reached for the branch, then paused his hand,

And widened his gaze to perceive the land.

“If I carry them all, I am bound to the ground,

My eyes will grow narrow, my steps unbound.

I’ll miss the trap, or I’ll miss the way—

And the squirrels need fruit for a colder day.”

He watched a bee on a blossom dance,

And left the pears to the wild and chance:

“Let the bees work on, let the sweet fruit grow,

In case I descend to the vale below.”

II. The Nectar, The Thistle, and The Trap

A purple thistle stood sharp and high,

As a busy worker went buzzing by.

“The bee seeks nectar, the fly seeks decay,

Yet both can be trapped on the winding way.

Does the bee see the spider web spun in the trees?

Does the Venus flytrap distinguish the bees?”

His mind drifted back to a woman of old,

In a provocative dress, with a voice turned cold—

Who called him perverse for the spark in his eye,

When she’d laid out the nectar as he walked by.

“If you show the nectar,” he thought with a grin,

“The natural response isn't error or sin.

You are but a thistle, sharp-edged and wild.”

And lost in his thought, he walked on like a child.

He stepped past a dead squirrel, dried in the sun,

(A meal for the ridge when the climbing was done)—

He missed it entirely, his mind in a fog,

Fixated on thistles beside a wet log.

III. The Stream and the Breadcrumbs of Slate

“What use is a thistle?” he pondered aloud,

As a dark shadow drifted across a gray cloud.

“Where the nettle stings, the dock leaf grows near;

Perhaps this sharp plant is a cure for my fear.

A remedy held for a bite or a sting—

I shouldn't abandon so useful a thing.”

He looked to the valley, the memory gone—

He’d forgotten the path where the pear tree had shone.

So he knelt by the water, cool, quiet, and deep,

And gathered forty flat stones from the sleep.

He laid down a trail, a light grey ribbon of slate,

Leading back to the thistle, to anchor his fate.

“If I need the plant’s medicine, the path will be clear;

If I hunger, the stones guide me back to the pear.”