The sun ascended early in the morning
Climbing hills and sky through a window
Breaking into dawn with golden weather
Stirring awake a child and her mother
And a new day begins in the small house
With the child finding her box of crayons

To the kitchen table she carries the crayons
Squinting tiredly at the dazzling morning
As the radiant sun lights up the tiny house
Spilling gaily in through the open window
And illuminating the outline of her mother
Remarking quietly, “what beautiful weather.”

“I wonder why we’ve had such good weather?”
She says, as the child carefully chooses a crayon
Then stops, and turns again to her mother
Still entranced by the picturesque morning
Soaking in the deep warmth by the window
“Momma,” she asks, “what color is a house?”

“Would you like to look outside at the house?
You don’t need a coat, it’s very nice weather.”
She watches her child from the window
Comparing from her box the best colored crayon
Drenched in the bright blanket of morning
Thinking how wonderful it is to be a mother

And then she began to think of her own mother
And growing up in the same petite house
When they woke early on Sunday mornings
Marching to church, regardless of the weather
But on sunny days she would leave out a crayon
That would melt from the heat on the window

And how she gazes through that same window
Imagining when her own child will be a mother
But now her child has found the correct crayon
Matching it confidently to the color of the house
As she trots back inside from the balmy weather
On a wonderful day that is still only morning

An unforgettable morning framed in the window
With extraordinary weather and a smiling mother
From a little house colored by a child’s crayons