I approach the island with its marshland grasses and reeds, standing at the prow of a slow-moving canoe in the sun. Though it is only a narrow waterway that separates this island from the mainland, still, it is an island, distinct. People don’t live here. Animals do, but not people, yet I’ll be staying for a while. It is the island both of healing and of wounds, because the two are the same in this place. It’s where I come to get the medicine.

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