Whether the reader is a Texan or someone with no knowledge of the state, Lone Star Heart will bring new insights and warm, sublime meditative moments. Indeed, the book, when taken as a whole, could be understood as one long meditation. The narrative poems, some poignantly personal, like his powerful elegiac tribute to his father and his daughter, Kite Kin, are full of factual insights and accented with Johnny Bowen's heart-felt paintings. Baldwin's poems, which I have been privileged to enjoy reading for the many years he has been perfecting his art, are always fully informed close observations of the natural world sprinkled with the mystical-landscapes of the physical and the ineffable.