Love

It begins in arms.
Or maybe it culminates in arms.
Ending merging into beginning.
Undistinguished.

They place her in my arms.
Warm, wide eyed.
Her lungs breath air for the first.
She is stranger, yet familiar.

She grows tall, independent.
But when her finger is cut,
Her heart broken,
She returns to arms.
Back to me.

And I hold her tight, knowing.
Someday, it won’t be my arms she runs to.
There will be stronger arms.
And when they hold her, she will know.
She is home.

Like I knew when her Daddy held me.

And if they place someone tiny
In her own trembling arms,
She will wonder,
Is this the end?
Or the beginning?

And I’ll whisper,
Both.