Full Measure
If you put all your eggs in one basket, at least you will have a basket full of eggs.
Kay Sage
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
If you put all your eggs in one basket, at least you will have a basket full of eggs.
Most people know the warning: don't put all your eggs in one basket. Kay Sage takes that old piece of advice and turns it around. Her speaker doesn't deny the risk. Instead, she looks at the other side of it. If you commit everything to a single thing, the worst outcome is still that you end up with something whole and complete. A full basket is a full basket.
The tone is calm and a little dry, almost like a shrug. There's no big speech about courage or recklessness, just a short, plain sentence broken into tiny lines that make each phrase land. The title, "Full Measure," backs this up, suggesting that giving yourself completely has its own reward, whatever happens afterward. The poem seems to prefer wholehearted commitment over careful hedging, though it says so quietly. What it leaves open is the unspoken question: what happens if the basket drops?