World Polio Day……Broching On…..From ‘Emergence’ Magazine…..
by Bernie Bell - 08:39 on 24 October 2024
World Polio Day……
I joined Rotary in ripe middle age.
My club secretary wore braces on his leg.
I recalled the frustrations of a young boy
in Ohio summer not being allowed to play
in the public pool for fear of a disease.
I recalled the rickety wheelchairs,
wooden crutches, my brother's friend
in a wheezing iron lung.
I recalled when they loaded my whole class
onto a bus in the middle of the day
and took us to the high school.
We were lined up, my stomach quaking
for fear, not of a disease,
but of a needle.
The next day, my arm was sore
but I grew up — walking and breathing,
and so did all my friends.
My mother thanked God.
I decided to study biology
and became a scientist.
I vaccinated my kids
as the iron lungs
fell silent.
I taught them to swim
in the neighborhood pool
and was unafraid.
I donated money to the Rotary Foundation
and armies of doctors marched,
needles instead of guns,
health instead of death,
vital children with purple pinkies
and we nearly won.
But our success became our enemy.
and then I watched a world forget.
October 24th is World Polio Day. I hope you'll join me and my fellow Rotarians in our quest to End Polio.
https://bartbarkerpoet.com/2024/10/23/then-i-watched-a-world-forget/
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Broching On….
This is on the ‘Ancient Stone Botherers’ FB page….
I commented….
“This is a wonder-full post, which brings many things to mind.
The significance/importance of wells & springs……
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/11/05/wells-springs-of-orkney/
The Well at The Cairns…
https://theorkneynews.scot/2019/07/11/the-cairns-on-a-sunny-sunny-open-day/
The structure of Mine Howe…
https://theorkneynews.scot/2017/07/27/bernie-bell-minehowe/
I realise that these aren’t quite the same – but, to me, there is something of a similar feel or idea about them.
Thank you for posting this – it really is exceptional.”
And then…..
“At a bit of a tangent again - but I thought of nuraghe..... https://theorkneynews.scot/.../11/a-broch-by-any-other-name/ . I'll stop now!”
The ‘Ancient Stone Botherers’ page has much of interest and, mostly, good-natured contributors. I likes it – as I am an Ancient Stone Botherer in more ways than one!
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From ‘Emergence’ Magazine…..
The Persistence of Past Worlds on Earth
We are not the only storytellers in this corner of the universe. The Earth, as persistently as humankind, records and preserves Her story. In the grammar of granite and the syntax of sediment, kept in wrinkled strata just beneath our feet, Earth archives hundreds of millions of years of Her own evolution. Singular among neighboring planets, Earth offers a portal into geological time—the rocky transcribing of time’s slow passage that, while often imperceptible to us, makes itself legible through the churn and quake of the Earth’s crust, the rise of great mountain belts, and the erosion of valleys and canyons.
In this essay, geologist Marcia Bjornerud orients us to read the Earth’s many-volume memoirs—some boring, some humbling, some terrifying. Chronicling how the planet archives memories, Marcia calls us to celebrate the deep time-fulness of Earth: the four billion years of dynamism that have made this moment possible. If we remembered the stories that came before our humancentric one, could we see how the past remains tangible, shaping the present? Could we glimpse, Marcia asks, our ephemeral place in the “vast labyrinthine library of time?”
“Rather than fleeing
from our Earthly roots,
we need now
more than ever to reconnect
with our evolutionary origins
as we face an uncertain
geologic future.”
—Marcia Bjornerud
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My tuppenceworth…
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/05/25/the-western-isles-or-there-and-back-again-ii/
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