Yellow

Painting a Woman’s House Yellow on a Wednesday in June

She bought us sunshine to spread on the sides of her house,

The summer sun slapping our arms

‘Til the red burning blushed its way to the surface of our skin

It had taken twenty years, she had said,

for the house’s last coat of yellow to fade to white:

Her husband faded faster, and we had chipped away the remnant of his work,

Scraped that dull sun into the soil and begun again.

We rolled our stories out across the surface of the afternoon –

stories that wondered and hoped,

stories that believed in new beginnings – Too bright, she told me

when she saw the sun on the house’s side. But her son led her back inside,

and we started on the second story, wondering where we’d be

when this new sunshine fades to white.

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Sam Townsend helps write training, programming and marketing materials for YouthWorks mission trips. When he isn’t hanging around teenagers at church or digging into seminary homework, he is generally looking for a good conversation and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant to have it in. Sam still considers his first couple summers working for YouthWorks in Virginia and Pennsylvania communities some of the most transformative times of his life.