The Eternal Bivouac Poem by Dorothy M. Schreiber

How dear to my heart are the memories of yesteryear.
Those gone now still live as if they were near.
The house in the valley in that small town.
Stands yet, its white turned gray and still down
That bucket in the well, waiting for a pull,
To pull up waters drunk in dippers full.
Pastures stand beyond their grasses high and green.
Summer's heat shimmers with hazy sheen
And the ancient oak spreads its branches wide
While the munching cows beneath it hide
As their glossy flanks rise above swollen udders.
A hired boy lies asleep and nothing deters
His pleasant dreams and the sweat on cooling brow.
Oh, how sweetly plain and domestic it seems now.
I would that some magic restore me to those years
When as a small girl I to these delights forgot fears
Of the garter snake crawling timidly to the haystack,
Leaving me with lifted rake poised for an attack.
Chickens with their broods clucked nervously
Pecking at their feed scattered previously.
Curiously, I noted the outhouse sagged as if wearied
By its long accommodating necessity to be freed
From its status as convenience and comfort station.
Turn back time in your track.
Let me, sunburned and freckled, return in eternal bivouac.