For A Minute, Small Things Matter

Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”

~ Henri Frédéric Amiel

Whether a poet, a painter or a pipe-fitter, we all have the same 1440 minutes given to us each day. How will you spend yours? What broken piece of this world will you mend today? Who will smile because you bent their way? Do you believe even small, unnoticed efforts matter?

Consider this poem by Jeff Reed.

For A Minute

It is enough if my poem

fills only one minute of your life;

if it packs it brim-full, packs it quickly

with a thick vigor in it,

with a vital punch, for just one minute.

.

And then let it be forgotten,

its sweet residue dissipating in the

rush of the next minute’s press.

It will have achieved its noblesse oblige.

Its raison d’etre seized: to have dressed

one minute with the elegance

for which all minutes were meant.

.

And come another million years,

come the extinction of memory

and all memorials—that for one

minute it thrived in one place

and one time, though it not survive,

it can never for a minute be erased.

.

You can find more of Jeff Reed’s poetry at Wind in the Reeds.