Making Bread by Grace Noll Crowell

Some labour gathers to itself a light:
This I have found where, women, making bread,
Perform anew an ancient, simple rite
That men and little children may be fed.
Something about the handling of white flour
Is beautiful: the thought of sun on wheat -
The shining silver of a quick, late shower -
A great mill glimmering through the harvest heat -

And old as time- a fadeless picture still:
The gold of grain crushed fine beneath a stone -
Two women grinding at an ancient mill,
And one is taken - one is left alone -
Oh, always, somewhere - women have made bread
That men and little children might be fed.