simple things

i have found such joy in simple things;
a plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
a cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
the shelter of a roof above my head,
and in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
i have found such joy in things that fill
my quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
a potted plant upon my window sill,
a rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
a table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
and books i long have loved beside me there.
oh, i have found such joys i wish i might
tell every woman who goes seeking far
for some elusive, feverish delight,
that very close to home the great joys are:
the elemental things- old as the race,
yet never, through the ages, commonplace.
-g. crowell