Before Progress

Irene Keller

March 1, 2026

Texas earth free

of  barbed-wire spikes 

made to own the land.

Buffalo herds, pronghorns too

did not follow paths that led 

controlled cattle to slaughter.

Stars blanketed darkness

guided deer on their journeys 

no headlights to blind them.

Plentiful paintbrush blossoms                     

fed insects that enriched prairies

empty of steel in constant motion.                       

Piney woods with underbrush

gave shelter to sleepy squirrels    

not vain manicured trees, parks. 

Turfs of waist-high switchgrass 

moved like threads of tawny silk 

land not stifled by gray asphalt.

Birds conducted nature’s songs

echoed in springs, creeks, rivers

now rocks, dust, plastic bottles.

Irene Keller, a Texas poet, enjoys reading poems published in the Texas Poetry Assignment. While reading them, she is always amazed at the wonderful poets whom many may not know unless they read Texas Poetry Assignments. She feels fortunate to have a few poems be part of the online journal.  

Jornado Mogollon Serenade

Vincent Hostak

February 1, 2026

Hueco Mountains, El Paso County, TX

The Jornado Mogollon (moh-gə-YOHN) people inhabited the Chihuahuan Desert region, especially among weak granite hills and mountains. In the mid-1400s, fleeing devastating droughts, they left their villages and pictographs behind. The pockmarked hills are filled with shallow depressions known as the Hueco Tanks, which hold rare pools of rainwater. 

When swallows hung mud nests from cave mouths like

garlands of gourds,

When sparrows chased down-valley dust devils to

bathe in dirt,

When blue quail shook from top-knot to talon,

grazing for seeds,

All the Chihuahuan Desert could provide

was yours and theirs.

When rainwater filled the wind-chiseled wells,

you washed your face.

When prickly pear wore a blaze of pink flames,

you ate their flesh.

When birds bartered songs for the fruit that you

left for them,

You in your round-cornered homes slept among

silver-tipped saltbush.

Then came droughts, Spaniards, then railroads. Birds fled

to sierras.

Then you, too, moved south to piñon-shaded pueblos:

Casas Grandes.

Then, a horizon of roads, checkpoints, and detention

facilities.

Behind you, only small etched birds for

ravens to admire.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living with his family and faithful canine, Lola, near the Front Range of Colorado. His recently published poems are found in the journals The Dewdrop (Vanessa Able, Editor-In-Chief), Sonder Midwest, The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and the Texas Poetry Assignment.  His contributions also appear in the anthologies The 30th Annual Poetry Ink Anthology (Moonstone Arts, Philadelphia, 2025), Lone Star Poetry, and The Senior Class-100 Poets on Aging (Lamar University Press, Laurence Musgrove, Editor). His podcast on classic and contemporary poetry, and the novel ways it reaches audiences, relaunches in 2026.

Pre-Texas: Stake, Stead

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

February 1, 2026

the land is the land’s

we

      are The People

(ever notice how many indigenous folks’

             name for their group is - The People

             and for the others some slur, or just

             The Others?)

we

       stake no claim, put up no fence

       thunder across open miles

       and come back

       to some places

they

        settle

         gather

         re-name

         remain

when we swoop down upon them

       who have  

       claimed those places

their tidy farms

              (Even Woody had it wrong -

                “This land is your land, this land is my land…”)

we are not trying to take it over

we are just

                     like the displaced across the globe

        pushing

                     back

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of eight books of poetry, including A Thoreau Book (Alabrava Press, 2025). He is the co-editor of the University of Houston Press, Unsung Masters volume on Rosemary Catacalos (2025), serves as literary executor for her estate, and is assembling her unpublished work for a volume titled Sing!

An educator, editor, and community arts activist, LaVilla-Havelin was, for over 10 years, Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News. He has been the Coordinator of National Poetry Month in San Antonio’s annual activities for 18 years (as of 2025). In 2019, he was awarded the City of San Antonio’s Distinction in the Arts for Literary Arts.

A creative writing teacher for almost 50 years - in addition to his 12 years of teaching at The Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center for Gemini Ink’s Partners Program - LaVilla-Havelin teaches senior citizens in the Go Arts Program through Bihl Haus Cultural Arts, and has been Poet in Residence at the Young Women’s Leadership Academy, teaching high school students.

His most recent 2025 poetry collection is from Lamar University Literary Press, Mesquites Teach Us to Bend.

Sunrise Ceremony

Chris Ellery

January 4, 2026

If I had driven my truck this morning

instead of walking the footpath in the dark, 

I would have missed the great egret 

standing alone in the water 

watching me as I stand watching her, 

just where an Ndé maiden stood 

many centuries before 

watching another great egret 

watching her watching her 

in the third dawn of her sunrise ceremony. 

For an instant, I see as the maiden saw, 

pollen, cornmeal, clay, and I, too, 

am White Painted Woman 

of the gray people beholding myself 

in the eyes of the white bird. We three—

the bird, the youth, the elder—share 

the sacred peace as the year divides, 

unpolluted air and light, and comprehend 

what goes, what comes, what always is. 

Now the egret, looking skyward, stretches 

her slender neck and powerful wings 

and lifts her body from the mud. 

She is flying east, fringed with sunbeams, 

away and away, then turns 

and draws a wide circle around us, 

then back again comes, 

swooping down, ghostly gliding, 

filling the sky as she passes, 

and with vigorous strokes 

of her heavenly wings heads west 

to rendezvous with the end of the day.  

We watch her and watch her and watch her

until nothing is there but empty sky. 

Our people are waiting, but they must wait.

Our hearts are dancing with the blessing,

holy morning of a timeless world.

Nothing is the same,

and what happens once happens forever.

Breathless, we wait 

for the day to settle itself into what it is, 

then set off on our separate ways together, 

eager, watchful, grateful, glad

for the sunrise gift of change.

Chris Ellery is the author of six poetry collections, including Elder Tree, a meditation on the 13th month of the Celtic year. He is a member of the Texas Association of Creative Writers and the Texas Institute of Letters. By his count, "Sunrise Ceremony" is his 50th poem to appear in TPA. 

Dispossession near Nacogdoches

Chip Dameron

January 4, 2026

East Texas was home

to the Caddo long before

Spaniards, Anglos came

they built beehive homes

with switchgrass thatching, good for

winters and summers

their burial mounds

are far from Oklahoma

where elders now live

Chip Dameron has been publishing poems since 1975. His latest book, As the River Tumbles On, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press.