Medicinal

I gave thanks of a sort that there were waves,
green oil or not, and that the bridge was low
and made of wood and that the ride was longer
than I expected; and I had time afterward
to put it together again, whatever the name of the
swamp was, though I drove myself crazy
try ing to figure out what the dirt road was
and if the flower I picked was medicinal,
and was it the tiny round head or the long root,
and couldI save a life? Not to mention
the mystery of the small cement building
and where the driver himself came from--
was he the one from Thessalonica,
a Turk as I recall, and was he the one
who wore a necktie with green on one side
and brown on the other that bore a screaming eagle
with bolts of lightning coming from the claws
your grandfather wore in the early thirties
when he did curbside at Idlewild.