Cartography Magazine

West Texas Words by @kpaoletta
Cartography N.12

Photographs by
@itshannah.ruth and @amoscampos_

I drove east out of Marfa, past mile after mile of fenced-in rangeland dotted with Soaptree yucca, their flowering white columns of bell-like flow- ers catching what sunlight filtered down from the titanic clouds of Texas. Far to the north, Mount Livermore looked like a hump of brown clay sheathed in dust. With nightfall approaching, I stopped in at the visitor centre that of- fers the best view of the Marfa Lights – a strange occurrence of unexplained pinpricks of illumination that seem to dance across the surrounding plateau every evening. The lights might be an optical illusion, but nobody really knows. With no trees of any stature for a hundred miles in every direction, this was an ideal place to not just try to spot those paranormal lights, but watch the sky and earth confer…