We Indian people who had inhabited the land had not been meant to survive and yet we did, some of us, carrying the souls of our ancestors, and now th… - Linda Hogan

I feel the air as if I could move through it with my ancestors' wings. (p 202)

"Your mother was a door...Always closed. But sometimes I thought she was a window, instead, because through her I glimpsed scenes of suffering."
Even young, I understood this in a way. I understood already from what the women said that my mother was stairs with no destination. She was a burning house, feeding on the air of others. She had no more foundation, no struts, no beams. Always, a person would think she was one step away from collapsing. But she remained standing.

All the stories live in our bodies, he thinks. Every last one. (p116)