cup

Poetry is something I have never associated with my father, but tonight I found this which he had written out for me about 40 years ago.

The cup is one of Sarah's, a Gladstone bone china pattern called "Rosewood". It's in the spare room, an uncluttered and bright space which I use to photograph still life and to sit and read in peace and quiet. (Internet doesn't reach this side of the house).

I Have Found Such Joy

by Grace Noll Crowell
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 a 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.