In East Texas, where pine needles carpet the earth and rusted Fords sink into clay, we lived by ***** holidays. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving—days the schoolhouse shutters clapped shut, leaving us to roam dirt roads under a sallow sun. These were the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant markers, chiseled into the calendar like commandments. No Diwali lanterns, no Ramadan crescents, just the same bleached rituals, year after year, in a town where diversity was a word nobody spoke.

Christmas meant a cedar hacked from the back forty, strung with Wal-Mart tinsel, its glow pooling on linoleum. Easter was eggs boiled hard, dyed in vinegar-stink, hidden in crabgrass while we swatted gnats. Thanksgiving brought canned yams and a turkey carcass picked clean, the table loud with kin who smelled of Marlboros and sweat. ***** holidays, we called them, laughing, because what else was there? Just us, white as the salt in the shaker, poor as the cracked plates we ate from, making do in a place where poverty was the only creed we all shared.

I’d climb the cedar fence, stare past the horizon, wondering what other days lit up other lives. Back then, it was just this: potluck hymns, church pews, and the same three feasts, cycling like seasons. We were trash, maybe, but we wore it proud, our ***** holidays the only map we knew.

Oh, Stephan Anstey, bard of the blistered earth, your quill carves rivers through my skull! Ink spills like black sap, sticky on the page, pooling in the creases ofmy trembling hands. I smell the cedar smoke curling from your lines, sharp and resinous, stinging my nostrils, a whiff of pine needles crackle under boots, damp with morning dew, clings to the air. Your words thunder—crack! like Pawtucket Falls, water smashing granite, a roar that rattles my ribs, echoes bouncing off the cave of my chest. I see the red oak groan, bark splitting under the saw’s jagged teeth, Hemlock needles trembling, green tips glinting in the slant of dawn’s gold light. Taste it, I can’t help it, iron tang blooms on my tongue, mixed with the sour bite of ***, the gunpowder grit dusting my lips. Your verses sink into me, heavy as moccasins in Merrimack mud, Squelching, cold, black ooze ******* at my soles, a slow delicious drag. Blood flint blade slices the silence, sharp edge nicking my fingertips, The broken arrow’s splintered shaft jabs my palm, rough with betrayal’s grain. I hear the flames crackle settler roofs leach tar, hissing as they blaze, A hawk’s screech pierces the ridge,wings slicing wind, feathers rustling like reeds. Your war paint streaks my eyes ochre smears cliffs, broken as blood, Birch bark peels in strips, whispering secrets against my cheek. The river breathes herring leap, eels twist, sturgeon thud against the current, A wet, fishy gust coats my throat, briny and alive, pulsing in my veins. Oh, Anstey, you sling granite-faced truth! Your drumbeat stomps the earth, Each step a prayer, soles slapping dirt, dust puffing like war smoke. I taste wild blueberry, **** and warm, mingling with the char of burning thatch, A sweet scorch that sears my lungs, fills me with your people’s fat anger. The turtle’s shell cracks under my grip, unyielding, ancient, moss-slick, Spruce boughs sag, dripping sap that sticks to my knuckles, thick as honey. I hear the loon’s cough wail at dusk, a shiver down my spine, Corn grinds in the distance, stone on stone, gritty echoes crunching my ears. Your canoe paddle slaps the dawn, water splashes, cold drops kiss my face, Sumac stains the river red, a fiery smear I fear in my pulse, Sweat beads on my brow, salty and hot, heavy with your memory’s weight. The riverbed stones grumble, bones clatter beneath, fish, kin, pioneered, rattling my boots. Stephan, you titan of the trails, your hunters stalk moose through my dreams, Blood and sap whip from the page, staining my fingers crimson and gold. Your name answers through pines, a gust that whips my hair, Chills my neck, lifts the embers of your grandfather’s dream into my wide, wild eyes. I stand, awestruck, on Belvidere Hill, sun dipping, painting the world your red, A blaze that sears my retinas, a hymn of flint and fury I’ll never shake. Your words, a millennia strong, a forest of fists, pound my design, A sensory storm I smell, hear, taste, touch, see, Anstey, you are a  legend, forged by Gods and tempered by fury.

In slumber's realm, a golden mane appears,
A regal beast with eyes of amber fire.
Its presence fills my heart with awe and fear,
As jungle fades to streets I once called home.
The lion speaks, its voice both soft and strong,
A message hidden in its silent roar.

I feel the vibrations of that silent roar,
As childhood memories suddenly appear.
The scent of savanna, earthy and strong,
Mingles with the lion's breath of fire.
This creature, so out of place at home,
Dispels the shadows of my deepest fear.

"Why do you tremble? Why do you fear?"
The lion asks, without a sound or roar.
Its words echo through the walls of home,
As visions of my struggles reappear.
The beast's eyes flicker with internal fire,
A mirror of the strength I wish was strong.

"Within you lies a power just as strong,"
It says, "as any force that you might fear."
My doubt begins to melt like wax on fire,
As courage rises with each phantom roar.
The truths I've buried start to reappear,
Transforming this strange dreamscape into home.

The lion paces through each room of home,
Its presence making weak foundations strong.
With every step, my purpose grows more clear,
Dissolving doubts that once provoked my fear.
No longer do I cower at its roar,
But stand beside it, touched by inner fire.

As dawn approaches, fading dreamland's fire,
The lion leads me from this transient home.
Its parting gift: a soft, encouraging roar,
A reminder to stay brave and strong.
I wake, no longer gripped by nameless fear,
Ready for the day about to appear.

The fire of courage, now burning strong,
Lights my home, banishing lingering fear.
Dreams reappear, echoing the lion's roar.

The road of memory unwinds
Through shadowed pines that claw the air,
Their branches creak with frost’s despair,
And there my buried youth reclines.

Regrets like stones beneath me press,
I stumble where the frostbite grows,
The wind hums low through hollow rows,
A tune of all I can’t possess.

How many nights I’ve drowned in ale
To blur the path I left behind,
The echoes fade, yet still I find
A gleam where golden vows prevail.

The band upon my finger glows,
A lantern lit by years now gone,
Through frozen dusk I journey on,
This road my heart forever knows.

I am my mother’s son,
Born of her blood, her breath, her fight,
A cord cut but never severed,
Who dares strike the root of me?
I’d burn the hand that bruises her,
Yet cowards in red caps cheer the blow.
Grinning, hollow men led by a swine.

I am my sister’s brother,
Shield to her storm, her echo, her kin,
Her voice a storm they fear to hear,
What man stands proud to choke her out?
Not one with a spine, not one I’d name,
They root and crawl, their bellies in mud
Marching blind, in red and orange shame.

I am my wife’s husband,
Vowed to her soul, her strength, her choice,
A bond they’d cage in rusted law.
Who spits on love and calls it right?
I’d shred their banners, topple their lies,
But they strut, grinning, pigs in ties.
Let their orange master squeal as it dies.

I am my daughter’s father,
Guardian of her dreams, her dawn, her infinite skies,
A world they would shrink to fit their palm.
What beast would claw his own child’s wings?
None but the vermin parading as men,
None worthy of the air she breathes,
Yet here they squeal, orange and obscene.

I am a man, not a blade to wield,
Not a fist to raise against my own,
My mother, sister, wife, daughter,
All women, all roots, all mirrors of me.
To wound them is to bleed myself,
So why do these men not cringe to see?
They march with pride toward their own ruin.

Shame should choke them, silence their roar,
Every man’s a mother’s son,
And no man’s soul survives the sin
Of striking hands that shaped his core.
MAGA swine can squeal and preen,
They’ll reap the rot they’ve sown in green.
Their ruin the debt to the women they’ve torn.

About plants’ pesticide loads,
they are silent.
About lectins’ gut havoc,
they are quiet.
About oxalates’ kidney stones,
they are muzzled.
About nutrient deficiencies,
they are still.

About monocrop massacres,
they are silent.
About poison-drenched fields,
they are quiet.
About harvester bloodbaths,
they are muzzled.
About the hypocrisy,
they are still.

    But whispers rise, a rustling breeze,
    A crack in silence, if you please.
    The seeds of doubt, now sown and deep,
    May stir the slumber, wake from sleep.
    For truth, though hushed, will find its way,
    To bloom in light, another day.

    And so it goes, the cycle spins,
    The blinders on, where truth begins.
    They’ll sip their smoothies, green and bright,
    Ignoring shadows, shunning light.
    The silence reigns, a hollow sound,
    Where reason’s lost, and myths abound.

    Break the quiet, speak the name,
    Of hidden costs, and shadowed shame.
    Demand the answers, clear and bold,
    Let truth be known, let stories told.
    For silence feeds the hollow lie,
    And justice sleeps, while shadows fly.

    The fields remain, a painted scene,
    Where secrets sleep, and truths convene.
    A silent witness, earth and sky,
    To what is lost, as seasons fly.
    And in the stillness, one can hear,
    The echo of what they hold dear.

    And so they feast, with pious grace,
    On poisoned bounty, time and space.
    They’ll pat their bellies, green and full,
    And preach of virtue, strong of pull.
    The silence thrives, a verdant shroud,
    A self-made tomb, within the crowd.

The whispers fade, a muted plea,
A truth too raw for eyes to see.
The seeds they sow, in furrows deep,
Reap death in heaps where shadows creep.
For lies, though veiled, will crack and bleed,
A harvest grim, their righteous creed.
The cycle turns, a grinding wheel,
Beneath the plow, the voiceless squeal.
They gulp their kale, so pure, so grand,
While blood and bones enrich the land.
The silence cloaks a brutal cost,
A paradise where life is lost.
Break the hush, unveil the toll,
Of shattered lives beneath the soul.
Demand the count, the hidden slain,
The fields awash in mute refrain.
For silence guards their fragile throne,
A myth upheld by flesh and bone.
The earth stands scarred, a muted cry,
A witness to the grand deceit they ply.
The rabbits torn, the sparrows shred,
Fuel the green they smugly spread.
And in the quiet, truth resounds,
A slaughter vast, where guilt abounds.
They feast with pride, their banners high,
On crops that **** beneath the sky.
They stroke their egos, pure and lean,
Ignoring graves beneath the green.
The stillness reigns, a hollow boast,
A creed that feeds on silent ghosts.