"Clearing in the Sky" is the story of a man who is an embodiment of determination and strong will to live an active life to the age of seventy despite medical advice with regard to his weak heart. It is a first person narrative. The father of the narrator is the hero of the story. It runs parallel to or in contrast with the advice of the doctors.
The father wants to show something special to his son: his farm on the mountain slope. He grows yams, tomatoes and potatoes on the farm. He takes his son there on a long walk over the steep paths in the hot sun.
Forty years back, the doctors had told him to stop all activity and live the few days he had left him. But he lived to be seventy and raised a family of five children. During their walk, they remember the old trees and woods which took them thirty years to develop and grow. Trees like alfalfa, hickory, pines had grown tall upon sixty feet high. They hunt the rabbits and the fox squirrels for a meal. They have a coffee tree in their woods.
There is a clearing of not more than ¾ of an acre. This is the land that his father has cultivated and fenced to protect it from wild animals. He has chosen this piece of land because he knows anything grown in new ground like this has a better flavour. He climbs up the steep path to reach this farm. The reason is that climbing makes him a fit smart man in spite of his age.
He was 22 and his wife 19 when they cleared this place and cultivated it to grow corn, beans and pumpkins in addition to other vegetables. The son also remembers to have lost his little wooden plough in a furrow. The old man becomes nostalgic and remembers the places. He has lived an active life as contrary to doctors' advice. He is a lover of nature as well.
