FIRST DEEP BREATH / Helen Frost (http://www.helenfrost.com)

All the angels crane their necks to see

who came, who opens her eyes tonight

who takes her first deep breath of winter air.

It's Althea.  Rosy finch, singing in the tree

outside, brings the first rays of her first day’s light.

Brand new, the child is bundled with her mother in the rocking chair.

Her brother stands beside her.  He touches her hair,

lets her curl her fingers round his thumb.  He might

stand beside her on her last day, or she by him

on his, that hour and this one making right

of any wrongs between them.  Strangers, friends, we

who stand at this periphery, see our own angers dim.

(What earthly good could come of them?)

Whose voice is that, entering this blessing, blessing me?

NOTE:  Published in Kalliope; Helen Frost's note:  “First Deep Breath”

is a blessing poem for Althea Crane Finch Brand.