This Wild Sky

As I come out of my sod house and pass the protection of the canisak (storm shed), the wind greets me with a sudden sideways shove. I’m barefoot and shirtless, and my eyes already hunting—searching for animals and checking the weather—letting the sky steer the course of my day as I do every morning.

The gusts are cold, stunning, and seeming alive and angry in their intensity. The brilliant blue overhead and the shards of sunlight rippling through the last tortured yellow leaves are momentarily blinding. Instinctively, I glance around for a bear, and stumble off the gray boards of the entryway to find a tree to pee behind.

The spruce and birch branches bend and whip, fighting the roaring wind. I stare up at my childhood companions—these trees, born here on this hill, as was I—friends, in a way.  We’ve survived many of the same storms in the last half century, and somehow survived that biggest blizzard, too: life, with its