World Poetry Day

The following e-mail was originally posted on March 21, 2018

Today, March 21, is World Poetry Day.  There are a great many poets but the poet that has had the most impact on my life may not have been a poet at all.  There is a famous quote attributed to the Unitarian minister Edward Everett Hale.  It reads:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Somewhere in my teenage years, I came across this quote or something like it.  At the time, I did not know who said it, but in my idealistic youth it resonated with me so much that I created my own poem around it.  My poem reads:

I am only one

but I am one

I cannot do everything

but I can do something

What I can do 

I ought to do

and by the Grace of God

I will do

This poem has stayed with me all of my life and still resonates within me.  I wonder what poems resonate within you.   

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins