Just one snowflake swirling during the height of the mighty
storm
A single quark in an atom of a protein molecule on one cell
in my brain
A single note in the chorus of the marsh as the sun grows
warm again
Just one voice among the billions either dead, alive or as
yet unborn
Just one moment, quite important, except light years away in
any direction
The only tree in miles of forest where lightning chose to
strike
Just one small planet of an average yellow star midway out
in a common spiral galaxy
One billion years of geological change witnessed by
absolutely nothing
Colorful patterns emitting subconscious messages from the
wing of a butterfly
Just one boy notices for the briefest moment as she alights
just one time
Just a ripple of the many on a single lake when the breeze
comes up one day
One mossy, glacially-striated granite boulder in that vast
northern woods
An eye falls upon a single pebble among hundreds of
thousands strewn about
Just one neuron fires in the hiker and no conscious thought
emerges
Just one photon emitted long ago speeds past a blue-green
cloud-rippled paradise
A billion cries for food and shelter turn into white
background noise
Water dripping from the glacier has not yet become the river
we will experience
Just one small flame from the roaring bonfire rends a single
word of my book
Just one dream may fuel a people’s imagination for entire
generations
A single skeleton encased in stone gives rise to a moment’s
pause
Just one instant in the implacable present, so quickly gone
despite my many efforts
Narrow beam of reason disappears in a fog of ignorance and
superstition
The pallid sun of December briefly lights the room and then
the long night falls
Just one more acre cleared will help to feed us and cannot
do much harm
Just one life condemned to ignorance, hunger and filth
cannot sway our faith
Just one salty teardrop falls drying in that hot, red desert
sand
A single prayer cast outward into the twinkling black of the
celestial firmament
Just one more futile gesture in a city fueled by desperate
need
Just one more forgotten moment in a string of days from many
years, now all long gone by
A single-celled creature living large in one drop of
greenish pond water
The very first fat raindrop lost in the dust raised by its approaching
storm
Just one life form based on carbon given over to a moment’s
passion
Just one light ray refracted through one water molecule in a
rainbow
The last waking thought in a meditation that morphs slowly
into restful sleep
A single simple stone among all the rest in a long and
winding gravel road
Just one shortest riff of the sound of a creek roaring in
the Spring
Just one more filthy refugee trudging amid the sighing,
shuffling pilgrims
The anonymous steer in the slaughter house with brown eyes
so very full of soul
Simple problem that unravels systems far beyond its own
importance
Just one second before the explosion and things remain quite
ordinary
Just one more drink should solve the problems plaguing me
like biting flies
A single golden leaf spins ground-ward on a still and sunny
autumn day
A child alone whimpering in a cold building with shining
antiseptic floors
Just one more winter comber slams itself upon the ancient
rocky shore
Just one more bitter pill to swallow in a lifetime of mental
self-medication
One and only one inattention brings on death in a quick, but
casual, fashion
Just one happy smile can lift the gloom that settled in like
some densest fog
The faintest chance of one small victory vies evenly with
the certainty of death
A single light after miles of driving may seem either lonely
or inviting
Just one brief thought spreading out from but a single soul
among the billions
Just one day in an era of an epoch on a short-lived, but
fortunate, planet
Just one more Monday arrives too quickly as yet another
weekend fades away
Just one song in the misty pre-dawn stillness begins the
entire avian chorus
In a single flash of insight an old problem is finally solved, for once and for
all
