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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.”

IV. The Wasp, The Wolf, and The Trap

As he walked tiredly up the crumbling slopes,

He heard a soft buzz and in his mind took notes.

He looked across close and saw a sharp wasp:

“If I get stung now, I'll be utterly lost!”

His gaze grew too narrow, fixed tight on the threat,

And he missed where a hive of sweet honey was set.

Quietly nesting near roots of the trees,

He stepped on the ground and panicked the bees.

Yet he remembered the verse, and checked his broad stride:

“A stance built too wide will be stumbled by pride.”

Eyes half on the wasp floating near to his hair,

He searched through the leaves for a path to a pear.

Then a low, hollow growl echoed out through the sky—

A hungry wild wolf, with famine in its eye.

Blind to the forest, like a sheep in a pen,

Ignorance makes prey of the strongest of men.

Like a chicken that steps in a cage for the grain,

Or a lamb lured away to be bound in a chain,

The beast moved to strike, but Fido took flight,

Following the pebbles laid out in the light.

V. The Remedy and The Sovereign Win

Down the slate trail he ran, quick as a whistle,

All the way back to the lonely old thistle.

He collapsed by the plant, feeling sharp pain and heat,

From a bee sting now swelling right over his knee.

Beside him he noticed the squirrel lying dead,

And remembered the words that his master had said:

“What the enemy fears shows the edge of his blade—

Let him fall on your stance, or the price will be paid.”

He crushed up the thistle—both poison and cure—

And pressed it right onto the sting to make sure.

Then he looked at the wolf who came skidding to stop,

Standing hungry and fierce at the edge of the drop.

Fido smiled softly, his heart standing still,

No longer the prey on a crumbling hill.

He offered the squirrel as a peaceful reward,

Or laced it with thistle to shatter a sword.

A threat turned to ally, a sting turned to grace,

A lesson extracted in this quiet place.

No weight in his backpack, no anger within—

A sovereign resolution: a win-win-win. 💛🌀🌙