World IPF Week 3

Marking World IPF Week

Castlerigg Stone Circle - origin and purpose remain a mystery lost in time.

IPF - Ideopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis ... another mystery, remains a relatively unheard of condition. 'Ideopathic' because its cause is unknown. There are over 200 types of interstitial lung disease that are currently known of, IPF being one of the more common, but differential diagnosis and treatments remain complex, uncertain and essentially ineffective.

Breath by Don Paterson - translation of Rilke from 'Orpheus'

Breath, you invisible poem -
pure exchange, sister to silence,
being and its counterbalance,
rhythm wherein I become,
ocean I accumulate
by stealth, by the same slow wave;
thriftiest of seas... Thief
of the whole cosmos! What estates,
what vast spaces have already poured
through my lungs? The four winds
are like daughters to me.
So do you know me, air, that once sailed through me?
You, that were once the leaf and rind
of my every word?