Honey

I sing with it in my throat, enjoy its rich company before bed, contrive all numbers of things for it to enter into my body.  It is not just honey, however, but the bees themselves that intrigue.  The organism composed of individuals - metaphor to an imagined utopia, one where individuality flourishes.  Rather than seeking to adorn ourselves as individuals, we are content to remain fixed in our matching yellowblack bodies and let individuation come to us through the varied experiences of the world.  The flowers we visit are different, the flight patterns, particular to each one.  Yet the ultimate meaning is shared among the whole.  Keep the organism healthy and alive.  Make something beautiful (like honey) from the collective effort of millions of unique journeys.  It is working for something beyond the self.

Honey is the traveling bard of sweeteners.  Tasting it is to be given a window through which to know the clover blossoms wrapped up in its flavor, the small patches of peppermint and lavender.  Landscapes are painted in the flavors of honey.  We can taste the flora, experience the world in a golden, concentrated moment.  It is the flavor equivalent of a classical composition, bringing the sounds of different flowers into a coagulated and sublime whole.  It captures orange blossoms in its golden cape, tells of tobacco fields, buzzes of the once thought to be mythological flowers hiding in the bellies of New Zealand volcanoes.