New Name and Blessing

She holds her breath in sitting under green water, 
fearful to breathe, especially breathe what looks 
sedate indoors, as if in captivity brooks 
turn grave and sink, when on rocks they spray her to laughter. 
She sinks, supported by Grampa, who bathes her a Latter-
day Saint in an echoing font awash among bricks, 
and rises into the prayer that has echoed to fix 
her name in new birth: Meadow, now Jesus’ daughter.

Confirming her choice of new father, her father’s breath 
calls for the burning of spirit to light and to dry her, 
warming the assembly of Saints, as her baptism chilled 
him, and a few family friends, witnessing death—
on her he calls a blessing down the stilled 
attention held like tinder for the fire.