Alongside myths about the Alamo or the cowboy, Texans’ proud self-image is bound up with tales of white settlers conquering a hard and stubborn land, breaking it like a horse, and making it productive to the enrichment of a few, by means of the plow, the drilling rig, and the bulldozer. That narrative still dominates the Texas psyche, crowding out a very different and more venerable Texas tradition: one of deep reverence for the land, its flora, and its fauna.
In that vein is The Shimmering Is All There Is: On Nature, God, Science, and More, by Texas activist and author Heather Catto Kohout, who died in 2014. Her poems and essays are animated by her profound love for the Texas Hill Country, where she lived on the 1,500-acre Madroño Ranch with her spouse, Martin Donell Kohout, who edited this posthumous collection. The latest addition to Texas A&M University Press’ Women in Texas History Series, the book, published on August 10, focuses on the natural world, humanity’s place within it, and Kohout’s sense of the presence of God in nature. In its best moments—and there are many—Kohout’s work attains the richness of expression and insight found in the nature writing of Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Aldo Leopold, and Bill McKibben.
The essays cover a wide range of topics, from feral hogs to ancient Christian monks to the problems with corporate personhood—even a meditation on manure. The lyrical vividness of Kohout’s writing draws readers into her own deep communion with the natural world. “The copper and golden grasses of the pasture in front of the house blaze as the sun drops behind the western hills, each shoot seemingly sharp enough to pierce the chests of the bison passing across it,” she writes. Such vibrant and evocative passages bring to mind classics of Texas nature writing like John Graves’ Goodbye to a River or Roy Bedichek’s Karánkaway Country.
