Between Heaven and Texas

Between heaven and Texas, there's a sky that goes on forever. On cloudless mornings after a norther has blown through, the sky is such a perfect cobalt blue that you forget the "between" and know that heaven is Texas, or Texas is heaven—it doesn't really matter which. But most days there are clouds between Texas and heaven—puffy white clouds that set us dreaming on lazy summer days or roiling storm clouds that unleash lightning, tornadoes, and hail. The sky between heaven and Texas is a stage for drama more often than not, just like the lives we live below it. Perhaps that's why we're always looking up.In this beautiful book, noted photographer Wyman Meinzer revisits the place that inspires his most creative work—the Texas sky. His photographs capture the vast dramas that occur between heaven and Texas—rainstorms that blot out mountain ranges, lightning strikes that dazzle a night-black prairie, trains of clouds that rumble for miles over wheat fields, sunsets that lave the whole wide sky in crimson, gold, and pink. Meinzer's striking images reveal that in the sky above, no less than on the land below, endless variety is commonplace in Texas.Joining Meinzer in this celebration of the Texas sky are two fine writers, Sarah Bird and Naomi Shihab Nye. In her wonderfully personal introduction, Sarah Bird describes growing up as a dedicated cloud-watcher who, after several years among the cotton candy clouds and cool fogs of Japan, was shocked and exhilarated by the limitless hot skies of Texas. Naomi Nye has chosen poems by twenty-six Texas poets, including herself, which explore a spectrum of emotion about the sky above Texas and the weather in our lives beneath it. Together, photographs, memoir, and poems create a lasting connection with the power and presence of what Meinzer calls "that vast frontier and ocean above"—the sky between heaven and Texas.

Wyman Meinzer, of Benjamin, Texas, has published numerous books of photographs of Texas, including Texas Sky, Texas Hill Country, and Texas Rivers. He has the distinction of having been named Texas State Photographer by the Texas Legislature. Meinzer's work appears in magazines nationwide; he is also a frequent contributor to Texas Highways and Texas Parks & Wildlife.Sarah Bird, of Austin, is an acclaimed novelist whose books include The Yokota Officers Club, Virgin of the Rodeo, The Mommy Club, The Boyfriend School, and Alamo House. Her sixth novel, The Flamenco Academy, will be published by Knopf in the spring of 2006. She also writes a column for Texas Monthly.Naomi Shihab Nye, of San Antonio, is an award-winning poet and educator who has served as a visiting writer all over the world. Her book 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a National Book Award finalist in 2002.