If You Count the Circles by Rachel Lorene Johnstone-Pohlman 

 “All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 Prologue 

    Two tall narrow incense cedars stood in front of the small log home. Though these relatively fast growing, common subalpine trees were situated close together at their two-foot diameter bases, 

they had grown at a slightly oppositional angle, nearly imperceptible at first, 

but which, over time, was becoming increasingly noticeable. 

 Yesterday, as though by portent, Maggie’s eyes had searched sixty feet up their rich cinnamon colored trunks, squinting through flat lacy doily patterned leaflets 

and bright patches of autumn blue sky for a view of their uppermost limbs. 

 She had marveled that their crowns had grown nearly twenty feet apart.

 When had that happened? 

 As she walked toward the cabin, she glanced back at them once, and then again. Purposefully shaking off a feeling of approaching drama, she went inside for the night. The cedars stood silently, and waited.

                                                                                     copywrite protected Rachel L Pohlman 2010