All

All I ever wanted really was a warm room, rain tapping on a window, two easy chairs, a television, a faithful dog at my feet, embers winking and whispering on the hearth. Trust. Devotion. Sureness. A son, a daughter, calling on the phone, just checking in. And in the summer picnics, and in the winter Christmas, and in the spring long walks under damp new suns, and in the autumn pungent, papery leaves to rake into mounds which would sleep the night huddled beneath a cold orange moon. Simplicity. Peace. Love like a tall and graceful elm with roots descending to the center of the earth. Only this, nothing more.