Sleepwalk

Sleepwalk

His summer nights grew wearisome

Yet they were shorter than those days

When he would wait for night to come

And take away the sun’s hot rays.

For later, in the attic room,

His sleep was nightly plagued by dreams,

While he would walk amid the gloom

And see, not by the moon’s cold beams,

The cows that he was looking for—

Because of course they weren’t there,

Compelled to reenact the chore

Of sleepwalk he was unaware.

The hours before dawn he knew

Were darkest when he would arouse

To brush past bushes drenched by dew

In search of the night pastured cows. 

He’d find them by the rising sun

That broke the mists and brought in sight 

The cattle, coming one by one,

Through meadows bathed in clear daylight.

Their utters washed the cows would stay

Between the stanchions while they fed

Before their troughs laid full of hay

Each morning in the milking shed.