Tag: damage

2022 – March

. . . and the March-Winds Came

~~ a calendar quindecim ~~

by tkbrown
March came in like a proverbial lamb;
and she quickly began picking up steam.
The first few days were sunny, mild, and calm;
then snow brought by Winter's battering ram
escorted an annual Easter Squall
as cool weather squatted a few more days.
Another warm-up brought daffodils tall,
thunderstorms, tornadic torrential flays,
rooftops off homes, powerlines ripped from poles,
trees uprooted, homes and vehicles flipped,
damage for miles in corporate locales
where lives have been marred, heartstrings are now ripped.
From the anchoring strengths of hearth and home
where rebuilding takes time, tilling the loam
must be completed to stimulate phloem. 

Lives must be rebuilt in this worldly realm
while another, still being ripped apart,
cannot ponder whence the 'morrow's dire helm
will position them. Those who leave home port,
praying for a reprieve, can have no thought
or hopes quite bold as news from home is told
and the days flow forth. Homeland hopes for bought
or borrowed time as loved ones lives unfold,
then refold when words not sharing their pain
rip hearts asunder -- tell home's not the same.
Faces turn ashen as their colors drain,
emotions rage for lost hopes they can't claim.
Now, as the month begins its final wrap,
it is preparing to give us a slap
when leaving us with a severe storm snap.

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March 2022 — In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion

So, this says The Old Folks Saying Rings True.
It certainly does this year for me and for you!

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Photo Above: by jeffjacobs @pixabay.com.

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Hurricane

~~ a haiku ~~

~~ by tkbrown
The hurricane blows,
a big limb spikes through the roof --
squirrel babes need home

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Haiku The traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count format The haiku often focuses on images from nature. It emphasizes simplicity, intensity and directness of expression.

Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of ‘Renga’, an oral poem which generally was one hundred stanzas in length — also composed syllabically. The much shorter haiku broke away from the renga in the sixteenth century. It was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote the following classic haiku:

An old pond!
A frog jumps in.
The sound of water.

As the haiku form has evolved, many rules have been broken. However, the philosophy of haiku has been preserved: the focus on a brief moment in time, a use of provocative, colorful images, an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of sudden enlightenment and illumination.

The haiku philosophy influenced poet Ezra Pound, who noted the power of its brevity and juxtaposed images. He wrote, “The image itself is speech. The image is the world beyond formulated language (The Academy of American Poets).

Source: The Academy of American Poets. (29 February 2016). “Haiku: Poetic Form.” (10 September 2019). https://poets.org/text/haiku-poetic-form.

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Photo Above: by skeeze @ pixabay.com.
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Lead Pipes . . .

~~ an Essay ~~

~~ by tkbrown

According to the Associated Press (Porter and Catalini), lead pipes — in cities across America — are poisoning our children . . . and us . . . via the water that is piped into our homes. Tainted water in Washington D.C. was just the beginning. Then came the Flint, Michigan water scandal . . . and now Newark, New Jersey.

The human body, our domestic animals . . . we must have water to live. What an irony that the very pipes bringing that water into our homes are also poisoning that water with lead. This water, in turn, poisons all who drink it.

Porter and Catalini cite the 1986 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ban of lead in water pipes. The reason for the ban, cited by the EPA, was “lead’s harmful effects on children’s nervous systems.” In 1991, water systems across the nation were required by federal mandate to monitor lead levels in drinking water with a limit established of 15 parts per billion.

The 1991 mandate was twenty-eight years ago. This means that every town, village, community and city in this nation should have, on record, the levels of lead in the servicing water system(s). How much lead are YOU drinking daily? How much lead is your beloved dog or cat drinking daily? Even more importantly, how much are our children — who have no protection if not by us — drinking daily?

Are WE killing our children in America, because we have omitted following up on these mandates? Are WE causing the neurological damage that our children suffer because we have blindly trusted the system to correct the problem?

It is time for US to stop allowing our children to be poisoned by the very people who create the laws for us to live by! It is time for us to stop putting the children of other nations ahead of our own children’s health, education and welfare!

It is time for US — ALL OF US — to inundate our local, state and federal government representatives with demands to purify our water systems. Is the anti-corrosive coating inside many of these lead pipes actually preventing that lead from leaching through into the water? We had better be finding out — for our children’s sake — for our grandchildren’s sake!

Passing out bottled water is not sufficient! That bottled water in no way covers all of the water ingested by our children. Food is washed and cooked from tap water, as a rule. That means the very food we are serving our children may be poisoning them. Where can our children turn for protection if we, their parents and grandparents, are not protecting them?

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Sources: Porter, David and Catalini, Mike. (13 September 2019). “Lead pipes that tainted Newark’s water are found across US.” (Accessed 13 September 2019). Associated Press (AP) on msn news. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lead-pipes-that-tainted-newarks-water-are-found-across-us/ar-AAHfXiB?ocid=spartanntp.

Mayo Clinic. (6 December 2016). “Patient Care and Health Information – Diseases and Conditions: Lead Poisoning.” (Accessed 13 September 2019). Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER) https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisoning/symptoms-causes/syc-20354717.

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Photo Above: by Epcor.com.

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