I was walking through the National Mall thinking about medicinals and how they used to grow there when the ground was a marshland, undisturbed by human hands, and I heard their voices; the sumac said, We are always here the witch hazel – We are always here the sassafras – We are always here bluestem grasses – Always here. I looked about, what did I see? Medicinals growing around me rising from the gravel. The sumac and the witch hazel, come to soothe our pain, our sores come to soothe our troubles. The sumac said, We are always here the witch hazel – We are always here the sassafras – We are always here bluestem grasses – Always here. But do you see that woman sitting in the wheelchair with her Redskins cap on backwards and her plastic bags swinging – from inside a paper wrapper she sips from a bottle a new painkiller for the native people.