At My Daughter’s Baptism

Kathryn R. Ashworth

First Place All-Church Poetry Contest

And Eve … was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression, we never should have had seed, and never should have known … the joy of our redemption (Moses 5:11).

Child, see the fawn high-bounding,

vaulting the road, tracing the leaping doe

to the spring spurting around the pipe wounding

the soft earth. You know

the water, the toes gripping the wet stones,

the cupped hand running over, the slow

drinking, the glad moans.

Now hear the dawn’s great trumpet blasting

gold fanfare over the ridge: green

aspens shiver in the rushing sound, a casting

of bright echoes between

the summit and the far mountains. The peacock may

proceed to spread his burning eyes, to preen,

to strut across the day.

Tonight, beyond the dusty hours, when the coals

lie like hot-bellied clouds within

the glowing pit and the night like airy stoles

upon our shoulders, the thin

veils that keep us from the stars will fly

loose in the night wind, and we will spin

glass cartwheels in the sky.

Photography by Jed A. Clark