Today is the 5th annual Bloggers’ (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry.

This year’s selection so blew me away when it first arrived in my email that I read it twice, meditated on it all day, and then read it aloud to Rudi (who just loves that kind of thing, let me tell you).

A Capital Trip
            by Jean Esteve

We went for salmon,
me and him,
out past the last singing buoy,
on a choppy sea,
his wife aboard, too,
of course; as crew,
helpmeet, her feet
in high sturdy boots,
thick wool over all the rest.
I had on my flowery dress,
and like to froze
till he gave me his coat,
his big cozy jacket
right off his back,
when the wind whipped up
to a real squall
and rain fell hard
on the slippery deck,
rinsing my dainty hands.
We went for salmon,
came home with none,
no fish in the hold,
no wife in woolens,
a successful trip, nevertheless,
all told.

Oh my god. It’s just absolutely perfect in what it sets out to do and is such an amazing example of how poetry is capable of condensing a long story into 25 short, but powerful lines.

Feel free to participate on your own blog or Facebook page (or, if you like really short poems, Twitter) or to add a poem of your own choosing in my comments if you don’t have an online space you call your own. (And a hat-tip to Deb, without whose early post nudging my winter-weary brain I might have forgotten today’s significance.)

My previous years of participation in this event have brought us poems by John Frederick Nims, Mary Oliver, Grace Paley, Heather McHugh, and Barbara Hamby, all of which are worth a re-read should you be so inclined.