Every so often, this poem comes to mind.
I first heard it years ago, when a young co-worker recited it from memory. Listening to her mellifluous voice, rising and falling in all the right places, I thought, How profound.
I’ve used it with students for interpretation, for inferring, for fluency practice, for the pleasing rhythm.
Mostly I just mull the truth of it, in its utter simplicity.
Especially the last two lines.
I’ve only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give an account if I abuse it,
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.
Attributed to Dr. Benjamin E. Mays
You’ll bring your own interpretations, images, minutes to this.
I think of all the stories that hang in the balance of a minute. In the wavering. In the choosing. There’s always that minute before the accident, before the attack, before the kiss of human or substance, before the choice that cannot be unmade is made. In a minute, lives are created, lives are destroyed. Fortunes gained, fortunes lost. The young, often consumed with this minute, blinded by now, cannot see forward; the old, bearing the weight of all their minutes, look back, see them all too clearly, and sigh.
We do not choose our minutes. We cannot save them or store them. We can only seize them, endure them, waste them, invest them, or pay for them. A choice lies inside each minute, always, even when there seems no choice.
I think of the ripple effect of one minute’s choice, how it never affects just one person but countless others, spanning families, communities, cities, nations, maybe generation after generation. For better, for worse.
I see the news. I read. I hear people’s stories, every day. We live our stories, we make them, every single minute, by our choices, actions, reactions. In some minutes I pause, recalibrate, celebrate, breathe a prayer of gratitude. In other minutes I sink under the anesthesia of why.
Only a minute, come and gone, and we are changed, whether imperceptibly or instantly, forever.
And that line whispers to me, once more. It’s never far away, really.
Just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it.
lit bits and pieces 
Wow! Some big truth here. I want to save this one!
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Thanks for sharing this poem. It’s beautiful as are your questions and reflections. Something to think about…
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This poem makes me think! LOVE it! Thank you for sharing and for your reflection. This one will stay with me today.
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I will have to save this post and ponder it again. Already making connections with my current self-help read, The Five-Second Rule. Thanks for giving me pause to think this morning.
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Only a minute…yes, this is profound and makes me think…only a minute…when we read a slice, share a thought, connect the dots…only a minute.
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Sometimes when I’m driving and pass an accident, I wonder if that would have been me if I had left a minute earlier. Just a minute seems so small, but yet so much happens in a minute. Choices are made that can’t be undone. Lots to think about in this poem.
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Great poem – and yes, only a minute. So many of our slices are only a minute or two – but oh! the difference they are making in my life. (And oh! the minutes we put into the 1 minute read.) Thanks for sharing this poem and your reflection.
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This would be a good poem for a “poem in your pocket.” Another thought on minutes, my dad told me that if I begin a meeting late, say 4 minutes late… and there are 30 people present, I have wasted 120 minutes or 2 hours, not 4 minutes.
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This statement… “We live our stories, we make them, every single minute, by our choices, actions, reactions. In some minutes I pause, recalibrate, celebrate, breathe a prayer of gratitude. In other minutes I sink under the anesthesia of why.” Just… wow! So true. I absolutely love how you’ve phrased it.
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Thank you so much. In those lines I struggled most with the moments of “why,” as in why so many people make such destructive choices, what leads them to this … it’s paralyzing, numbing, to think about, hence the word “anesthesia.” Capturing what I wanted to say was tough, so hearing your words is very gratifying! I am so glad they resonate with you.
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