Summary Of The Poem 'Water Quilt' By Ron Rash

Each spring as the weather warms thoughts turns towards airing out the house and beginning the process of spring cleaning after a long winter. Ron Rash’s poem “Water Quilt” illustrates the chore of spring cleaning with a twist. During leaner times the people of Appalachia would use the river as a source for all household water use including cooking and cleaning. The tradition of taking all the bedding to the river to wash would have been a yearly ritual. Rash explains the reason this ritual continues here “the only water she believed \ pure enough to rinse away the silt \ of work grime, worry, fever,” (5-7) The water in the river could potentially be much cleaner than some water from a city source giving some legitimacy to the belief that only
the river was pure enough to clean the quilts. Handed down through generations the quilts would have been washed in the river each spring leaving small traces of time in the fabric. The passage of time could be felt in the fabric as Rash illustrates “soaked so thoroughly some part \ of water stayed in the cloth, \ flowed through it forever,” (12-14) Providing warmth and comfort over the years the quilts would be a treasured heirloom as well as a tangible piece of tradition to be preserved and honored.
The traditions of a people are what bind them together giving them a place to belong. These traditions and rituals may not always seem to make sense to those on the outside looking in but the people that they belong to understand the reasons. To note the passing of time by honoring the culture from which these rituals began we pay homage to the past and ensuring that history will not be lost to the advance of time just yet.