CIRCLING

The log was down to timid embers before she locked her last stitch, put the knitting back in its basket, and climbed slowly up the ladder to her sleeping loft, every muscle straining. Rebecka no longer worried about her little pains, which she deemed quite natural for her age. She was a pragmatic woman. That quality had grown through decades of practical experience and a hard won habit of quiet contemplation. No one who had known her as a highly excitable and dramatic girl would even recognize her now in her seventies. A patch of full-moon light illuminated 'Sweet', her ancient calico companion nestled deep into the generous folds of down comforter, where she had been since after supper as usual. The beloved feline hardly stirred as Rebecka crawled under the warm bedclothes and fit her body iike a dying swan around that furry vibrating form. They merged, concentric circles curling in towards their centers, one within the other as the winter night curled around the little cottage, and the stars curled round the planets streaming along on the Milky Way, curling ever inwards toward the center of vast space curling round the galaxy, and it curling and swirling outward toward other galaxies, also curling, swirling and streaming in repetition upon repetition; circles upon circles of fluid boundaries curling, opening out into the unthinkable - forever.

~*~