Ancestral Home

Ancestral Home (Henry Monteith 1733-1838) Blood and bone remember surely as nerve and neuron. Sharp, sweet spring wells, eddies through generations. Redbuds weeping thaw for blood and bone born too soon, lying cold. Sharp, sweet spring a cradle. Blood and bone left at fierce Shiloh, heaped in sharp, sweet, spring. Ghost pain - memory calls. Blood and bone remember fire, earth, water. Elemental reckoning— the earth thunders. Sharp, sweet spring eddies through generations, streams merge in churning unity— one believer in blood and bone. —Jane Hicks Shortly afterfinishing CLAY'S QUILT, Silas House met Jane Hicks at the Hindman Settlement School, and they became quickfriends. He was immediately impressed by her poetry andfound that one ofher poems, "Ancestral Home," perfectly captured one of the major themes of his novel—the theme of ancestry and the land being in our blood. Lines from the poem went on to open CLAY'S QUILT. When hefinished THE COAL TATTOO, a sort ofprequel to CLAY, he thought it onlyfitting that this novel open with linesfrom the poem as well. House says "Sometimes it's as if¡arte and I are telepathic with one another without even realizing it." ...