"You are about to come face to face with a Texas that has always 
been there, but that we don't take the time to see. The magnificent 
photos by Tommy LaVergne and the poetry of my friend Joyce 
Hardy combine to remind us of the stark beauty of this state. They 
remind us that in this age when only new seems to count, enduring 
things should never be discarded. Is there poetry in the commonplace 
and the mundane? The answer is a resounding YES that echoes from 
the Hueco Tanks through the sleepy main streets, out to the hard land 
and 'Stretches taut across the gaps of time and space' to finally settle 
into our soul. Hardy sees LaVergne's pump jacks 'like soldiers on a 
battlefield.' She sees his river and asks, 'What is it about a river that 
makes you feel eternal, connected to the past and future all at once?' 
She sees winter as a time when blasts of Arctic winds blow through 
thin barbed wire fences and 'leave a frozen necklace around the long, 
fair neck of the Panhandle.' This is a beautiful book, filled with artistic 
photographs and lovely poems evocative of a land that should not be 
forgotten." —Ron Stone, host of Eyes of Texas and Professor of 
Texas History at Houston Baptist University

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JOYCE POUNDS HARDY is a native Texan, a graduate of Rice 
University, and a well-known Houston-area poet. Her work has 
appeared widely in journals and has won numerous awards. She is 
the author of two books. TOMMY LAVERGNE has been the official 
photographer for Rice University for the past eighteen years. His 
assignments have given him the opportunity to photograph an 
extremely diverse group of dignitaries and educators, including 
Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush, and Clinton as well as Henry 
Kissinger, John Connally, James A. Baker III, Colin Powell, 
Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yassir Arafat, and U.N. 
Secretary Kafi Annan.