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I build walls, they build fences

I assemble sturdy rooms out of concrete and brick and mortar

They loop barbed wire through crooked posts

I huddle against the sleet and the tundra winds

Care in every brick laid

Still I shiver

Then a caribou grunts

I see the silhouettes beyond the wire and pilings

And I run to them

Reach out

Press myself up against the wire

It cuts me

I press harder and harder as the barbs sink into my skin

Sob, “Let me in!”

But they just grunt and move away

I am alone

Hands bleeding, rip out the wire

Kick over the posts

Too late

Then the snow comes

Falling softly from a sky the color of the underbelly of a whale

Beached

It freezes the blood, buries the fence

And I wander on, lost

Hunting for mice

A slight thing I have become

Padding, light-footed, across the snow

The days are getting longer

Each one, I know is closer to the last

Every night I look up to the sky

Listen

Distantly, Orion and the wolves pin me with their gaze

Remind me who is holy here

Some day soon I shall find another valley, another plain

Another flat bit of tundra

And I shall stop

Gather river-stones and grit

And build