Earth

Earth,
Our planet home,
Best visible from afar,
in fact the space travelers photos giving us the whole picture
in one gulp.

Earth,
some say needs help in maintaining it's wholeness,
I agree to an extent.
Still my personal me planet needs help at times too,
and when we animals called humans
on the ground, looking like tiny ants,
need compassion from the eco adorists,
like they care about newts and bats,
then I start to wonder
why the Earth needs humans at all.

How might the Earth feel?
If the Earth felt threatened, would it fight back?
This human has failed to fight for her rights due to lack of resources and compassion from other beings in town and state,
while they pour money on the newts and bats.

Can I be an expert like the ones who flood us with eco rhetoric?
Can I show you another side of people who wanted my property and cared not about the
last 2 humans living here from a long line of ancestors?

No, no one heard me,
Wait,
no,
no one heard.

Change in the Weather

I have not said much about the dreaded global weather debate.
It is an argument which is as futile and silly as arguing with my cat Tommy.
Oh we have had a change in the weather, in fact as they say wait a day the weather will change.

No this wind, this wind is blowing from other directions.

When I found out my property was on a priority list for eco warriors,
it was too late to really address.
By then, the plan to take my property at a tax sale fell through.
I felt like Mr. Magoo, oblivious to who might have been sitting there,
pen in hand, ready to take something I have worked towards my whole life.
My life blood really.

So when I hear the allegations of warmer climates to come, and how the bats will die
if someone does not take your property, money or lifeblood,
I only can say it is a lie.

The crows are not people haters and loners. We talk to Pa Crow and his family everyday, we throw out bits of bread and stale crackers for them and we look at them, and they look at us.
Caw, Caw, Caw.

I love this land more than just about anything in the world. What it means to me,
They really never cared.
Sometimes I sit and wonder who was sitting there, checkbook in hand, at the tax sale of my property that never came to fruit.
I think they were probably furious their plan failed,
Curse, foiled again.

I tried to get someone to care about what happened to us.
My blog Galaxy people got it, and a few others.

So when I am sore from shoveling and more snow on the way,
I have no doubt there is a change in the air,
a Change in the weather.

Time  for spring, already.

Cross Hairs

Cross Hairs

2010 by Mary E. Gerdt


Some saw us or what we have




as a target



And we got



Caught in the crosshairs



Of their eco-war.







How they care about the



Alleged habitat



Of the little bat


And not us.







And when I try to understand



How hard it is to know



Those around us can hate us so.







My Great Great Grandfather died on Shiloh’s soils

To free the slaves and do the right thing.

Speaking broken english, suffering death,

Was he caught in a battle of someone’s else’s thoughts?







When I caught MS I never thought



Anything could hurt like



When they caught us in the



Cross hairs of their

Eco-ewar

Until they did, again.

Intro and a poem

Herrad gave me a wonderful award which I am grateful for.
Today, I was again trying to make sense of a process where the Town of Monkton tried to sell my property and I still have never seen the paperwork or the notes of why us?
I even asked the "Addy Indy" for a copy of whatever legal notice was allegedly posted in the pay version of the paper (I read the online) that some residents saw but I still have not received it or seen it.
So in the absence of real info, my imagination runs wild, knowing a few facts
Like the conservation committee minutes were talking about tax sales.
The town did not post minutes on the website (even if they don't have to),
The fact that there is a website leads me to think of that as a way to communicate.
When I saw "tax sale" in the minutes I had no idea it was me.
Apparently, I as the female co owner of a property must rely on my husband to tell me the bad news.
When friends have said they know of many couples who might fall victim to this fate.
That the Male landowner/husband is all the town needed to tell. Fair warning to all you "minor" AKA "Chattell" landowners.With gay marriage legal now, I wondered who the husband might be?
Apparently being 9 months late on property taxes can be soon enough for the town to sell your property, especially if it abuts some natural area.
So I thought I would get this out of my system well before my holiday of Christmas.
It is my way of processing what the 1st ammendment allows me to name "eco terrorism".

I am.

I am an endangered species,

A human seeking shelter, food, happiness.



Finding instead the hate of human beings as unpalatable as a deer finds a rotten acorn and spits it out.

I wish I could spit out all the hate that has come my way.



People are funny about wanting to save bobcats and ravens and bats

While ignoring the people who live on this property that our ancestors fought for

And paid for

Over and over again with taxes, blood, sweat and tears.



Yes the bobcat has an ally,

The bobcat I saw one morning a year or so ago,

Thinking maybe he was looking out for me, the

Endangered human. He took my breath away, this simple creature.

The ravens or crows or I call them Prussian eagles of my fantasy world

Call to me, click, crow and fly over with the whooshing sound of their wings, telling me perhaps,

"Welcome home", hoping I will stay because they like our leftover stale bread and bits of fat

And conversation as We greet Pa Crow in the morning, like my Celtic friend advised.



Could any of the screaming conservationists come and hug me,

Not my trees

And talk to the crows, not ravens, and call the

Mountain its first given name? *



I have felt like the people around me feel I have no right to something I work every day to hang onto,

Until some one finds a way to take it from me,

And perhaps that will be a good time for me to go extinct,

Knowing there will be no one to argue that

"She had a right to live here like the bobcat, crows, bats and the Prussian eagles."



God help the people who lurk about and cannot face my face and talk to me.

God help the people who want to take from me the only things I have ever owned.

God help the people who place animals above citizens,

Trees above the people who own and love them,

Bobcats over my grandchildren

Land over civility.

Fair warning to others in my situation.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Dean Mountain
  Dean's Cave

02/12/11. update.
I still have not received anything from the town explaining to me what the process was
whereby they decided to sell my property. I own 2 parcels.
I still have received nothing from the addy indy as I requested a copy of what was in their pay newspaper,
I feel is not public it is private when they charge money.
I still have not received more than a sorry so sad letter from all the entities I have written.
I consulted an attorney who advised me it costs a lot to go against city hall and that the
parties who orchestrated this will lie and never "break down on the stand like a Perry Mason show"
I know the court system now. It is a hostile environ. All I can do now is keep writing about Vermont's dirty secret. In fact, just google Vt property tax lien sales and find out how you too can cash in on the foreclosure of property by local municipalities to pay education and municipal taxes. mary gerdt, monkton, vt