Patchouli and the damp

August damp gets into the stomach the way it gets into the bedsheets. A summer cold with a queasy belly, the traveller's stomach, the picnic that turned, a heavy head, loose bowels and no appetite: the Chinese physicians named the pattern damp blocking the middle, and they built a fragrant broom for it. Huo xiang, the mint cousin we call patchouli, leads with perilla and angelica dahurica to open the surface; tangerine peel, magnolia bark and pinellia dry and turn the damp; bai zhu and poria drain it downward; platycodon lifts the chest; ginger, licorice and jujube keep the peace. It smells like a spice cupboard and works within a day. This is the widest constellation in the sky, eleven stars, and it needs to be, because damp is everywhere in August.