April 2022 – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: April 2022

How I Lost My Faith – In Preachers

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life / April 10, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It was a cold and muddy Sunday
Our little caravan of Christians
children, parents and student minister
stuck in the spring mud a mile from church

Me and city cousin Wayne
the chosen ones at age seven
chosen to walk
to the nearest neighbour
while the others wait in the cars

The neighbour's not home but his Cocksuhtt 40 tractor is

Some combination of farm boy bravado
and reluctance to slog
back to the cars in defeat
comes out as "I can drive a tractor!"

One foot each on the clutch and a good deal of grinding
gets us into low gear
and off at about two miles per

The student mi sister meats us
two thirds of the way back

As our leader
in all things spiritual and practical
he decrees that we are going far too slow
and selects another gear
(probably at random, he's from the city too)

The one he picks is the fastest
known in these parts as "Road Gear"
and we quickly accelerate to thirty

which causes the preacher to panic
(or remember that he forgot his bible)
and leap off

leaving us to wrestle the big red monster
now wildly careening from rut to rut
and rocketing toward the mired cars
and fearful families

Wrenching the wheel to the right
at the last possible moment
we narrowly avoid death and destruction
and stall to a stop in the water-filled ditch
amidst the prayers of the congregation

A Caution Against Too Much Church Too Soon

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Religion / April 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Brother Wally at age three or four
sitting on the tracks as the train approaches
wanting to find out what it’s like to be an angel

The last minute rescue
granting him some fame and slack
when he went back to being
the little devil he had been the day before

1 Reply

Little Church

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Childhood, Religion / April 8, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes, as far from everywhere as we were,
a visiting or student minister would make the
long trek and our one room school would
become a church for the day

It didn’t happen often
so the first time my three year old brother
sitting in the second row heard him say
“Jesus Christ”
he turned and said
“He swore mom, the minister swore”

“Shh” said my mother,
“He swore, he swore, he swore” said Wally
every effort to silence him only increasing his
insistence and volume

Most fun that most of us, except my mother,
ever had in church

2 Replies

Gopher Tails

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / April 7, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I was seven
gopher tails were three cents

The county had a bounty to arrest the little pest
not exactly a price on their heads
but you get the picture

So we hauled buckets of water
to drown them out
learned from the bigger boys
how to tie a noose in binder twine
placed it around the hole
and waited

Curiosity, which has been known to kill cats
is not very good for gophers either

Once caught
they were run in mad races
spun to centrifugal asphyxiation
or finished off in other cruel ways
before yielding us our hard earned bounty

In the spring we watched their return
to the snow speckled pasture
running tumbling wrestling
making love

And the wonderful babies
when they first ventured out
to try sunshine grass and shaky legs

It amazes me now
that as boys

We could take such joy
in their playful
beauty

And in their deaths

1 Reply

A Prairie Villanelle

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Travel / April 6, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If prairie wheels again had I
I’d chew the gravel and the air
with prairie roads to fly

I’d plume the earth into sky
to show them I was there
If prairie wheels again had I

Past placed where dead neighbours lie
I’d not linger, who would dare
with prairie roads to fly

Dust to dust gets in your eye
I’d look for other things to share
if prairie wheels again had I

Then greener farmyards I’d pass by
in mem-mirages free of care
with prairie roads to fly

I’d roll past all that makes you cry
afloat I sunsets clear and fair
in prairie wheels again had I
with prairie roads to fly

Circling the Square

Audio Recordings, Travel / April 5, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The old towns in South Texas
have a town square that all life circles around
One sees it also in Mexico and Spain
but that was where I saw them first
and an instant homeless rose
In the small towns of Saskatchewan
where I was born and raised
there was only a main street
and that was always a road out of town

Town square San Marcos Texas, thirty miles south of Austin
Photo credit: Sharon Stuart

Dearly Not Departed

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / April 4, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I have a picture
not taken by a camera

Of you
in a white peasant blouse
standing in a field of bluebonnets
Any time I take it out will be spring

for Sharon

1 Reply

Reveille

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Austin, Garden, Spring / April 3, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The trumpet vines
are loud with bloom
heralding the spring

A Garden Blessing

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Faith, Hope, Spring, War / April 1, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Today all day the loving rain
has fallen on the new set plants

There are no
atheists in the trenches
and none watching from this window

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Sandi Hebley on How Fallen AngelsAugust 17, 2025
Indeed!
Nancy Fierstien on Unremember ThatAugust 16, 2025
Gonna be inclined to share this one at my Poets' Tea reading tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Neil!
Sandi Hebley on Memory Lane JoggingAugust 5, 2025
Lovely!
Sandi Hebley on Dad and Death at WarAugust 4, 2025
😢
Sandi Hebley on One for the AuntiesAugust 3, 2025
Wow!

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