This poem started with words, then found an image it could latch on to.

Pathways

The path divides:
sympathy one way,
pathology the other.
Will illness, yours or
another’s, as you walk
the hospital corridor
bring you to empathy?
There’s a chance any
route is a dead end.
When you reach a wall
you’ll wish you’d brought
a ladder, to climb the way
ancient monks pictured
the path to perfection,
but if you’d carried
that weight you’d not
have come this far.

I’ve seen an image of that metaphorical ladder – with those who lose their focus falling off the sides. I’ve long forgotten where I found it but it has stuck in my memory.