Complete List of Poems and Songs
Warning Bell
Rabbits
Changes in the Wind
For Vermont's Sake

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Art forms touch our souls in unique ways.  We are grateful to the poets and song writers who have written the works below and invite any poet or song writer to submit a piece for addition to this section of our web site.

Warning Bell

As the population continues to swell,
I hear the deafening sound of a warning bell.
Surely you can hear it too.
Growth is accelerating and changing the view.
Consuming and growing desires leave many wishing for more.
And up goes another big box store.

Oh Vermont, I am pleasantly shocked with your beauty.
I vow to make your preservation part of my life duty.
I shed tears of gratitude and joy upon returning to your gently rolling hills.
I appreciate you for your lack of consuming frills.
I never tire of your seasons.
In Spring and Summer, your luscious greenery.
In Fall, your palette of vibrant colors.
In Winter, your frozen waterfalls streaming down the faces of the interstate ledges.
And your virginal white blankets of sparkling crystalline flakes upon your fields.
All people deserve to be so blessed,
To faithfully and proudly proclaim their homeland to be the best.

I’ve gone beyond my prayers,
I declare a fervent plea,
Fellow Vermonters, let=s lead the way and commit to preserving our bounty, our gem.
There is no us versus them.
Spread our notions of sustainability to other lands.
This worthy cause needs many hands.
All people deserve quality versus quantity.
We must work diligently to make it a reality.

Sex education is a start.
But the curriculum is missing a part.
We need to include such words as voluntary simplicity,
global warming, sustainability and impact of decision.
Go to www.vspop.org and study their mission.

We share a small planet.
Everything we do has a direct effect.
What makes Vermont and Our Earth important to you?
Future generations in all lands and times deserve valuable natural resources and a beautiful view.
I’ll act like what I do makes a difference.
And I pray that you will too.

 

Jeanette Hurdle grew up on a small farm in Chelsea, VT, where her family grew much of their own food (vegetables and meat), cut their own firewood and grew potatoes for sale to their neighbors. Her mother resides in the family home built by Jeanette’s father’s ancestor, Nathan Flint, in 1798. She now lives in Barre, Vt. Jeanette’s book “Opened from the Inside Out” is available online: http://www.lulu.com/content/22667

Jeanette Hurdle on the right with her sister Nola Howder on the left.






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Rabbits

Guy at the church says write one about population
and all I could see was rabbits,
red eyes in swelling cages
and their seeming sole intentions
to eat and make more rabbits
as the pellets diminish.

What is so blind about us humans
that we create messes of our own undoing,
global warming and whatnot better left
to future generations
or hope one of our wars will wipe out half,
leaving the lucky half unscathed
by whatever it was got the dead ones,
and the dead ones not rotting up a pestilence
nor the leveled buildings and trashed bridges
prove inconvenient as they start over,
a little wiser for their brush with death
or more likely cause it seems to permeate our genes
and those of our furry friends clawing the cage,
reducing themselves again by increasing their lot?

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Changes in the Wind/No More

Chorus
There are changes in the wind,
There are changes in the wind.
Come one, come all and hear the call,
There are changes in the wind.

How many people is too many,
As we reach 6 billion strong,
Pull your head up from the sand,
The choice is in the hand.
Of every woman, child and man.
Chorus.

There is no grave premonition,
Than a world that is run out of room,
12 years more, uncontrolled,
Would add a billion to the fold,
And greater burden upon the land.
Chorus.

The world will see discord, drought and famine,
As the natural resources disappear,
And to feed the human masses
The earth’s fulfillment passes,
To a wasteland wild of sand.
Chorus

No More
No more copulation when it leads to procreation,
‘Cause there’s too much population in this world of ours.

Jeanie Fitchen is a folk singer and novelist from Florida and winner of the 2001 florida Folk Heritate Award. Her songs mostly relate to the environment.  This song is from her CD Roads which can be ordered post-free from her web site www.jfitchen.com or from amazon.com

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For Vermont’s Sake

 

The deeryards aren’t empty because the turkeys are too many –
there’s usually plenty of acorns and beechnuts to go around.
Their yards are empty, their safety gone, because there are
too many people in their way,
in too many places.

We need someone to save Vermont –
to buy the woods, the mountains
            and the flats,
to stop the building, ravaging and rape.

Once mountainsides were darkest green,
the stars profuse in blackened skies,
but fallen trees make way for named estates
lighted now to shine out at night.
People come to ends of the road
to get away, so they say,
only to shine spotlights
showing all the world where they are.

So we can’t see the stars anymore, and
far too fast the land is disappearing  –
the foxes’ dens on meadowed slopes,
the owls’ nestholes and woodpecker holes,
beavers’ lodges and dams – torn away
as humankind becomes most unkind
and comes to live in the wilderness.

Look to the south, Vermonters!
That’s us in 20 years: polluted, condoed,
strip-malled to satisfy the whims and
pockets of developers.  Look to the south,
just try to find the fields and rivers,
the trees that lived there once.

Our deeryards aren’t emptying because the
turkeys are too healthy.  They’re empty
because there’s too much building that takes
away their land. 

So who will come to save it?

Genie Rayner is author of Song of the Blessing Trees, a novel about the results of humanity's destructive relationship with the earth, a poet and an artist.  She is also the Founder of LadyBirch Creations and co-founder with Christopher Laro of BirchDel Poets. Go to www.LadyBirchCreations.com for details and to inquire about her writing and nature workshops. 

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For more information on Disappearing Vermont, Environment Population, Family Planning, Growth, Human Population, Overgrowth, Overpopulation, Population Resources, Smart Growth or Sustainable Population, please visit the links section of VSPOP website.Vermont poems, Vermont songs, MGB Designs - Website Design - Services - Burlington Vermont - Population in Vermont