Cows – Page 6 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cows

Dreams of My Father

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Illness, Stroke / December 7, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Six weeks you lay in a coma
what dreams you had
I never asked, you never said

The telling of dreams
was not a morning ritual in our home

If in grade two
I had been asked of yours
I'd most likely have said
More cows and a better horse

Cowversations

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / December 5, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

One of the reasons I got out of ranching
was the long drought of good conversation

Cowhands
true to their fame are men of few words

Horses ain’t bad
they will at least point their ears and pretend

But cows, it was the cows that did it
how they’d saucer eye like listening
while you chewed them out in detail
about all the dumb things that they’d done

Turn away to ruminate upon the lesson
and two days later kick you for no reason

Cows in the Rain

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows / tagged Meditation / December 3, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cows in the rain
standing still as time

Red coats black
and black coats blacker

Calm as a statue of the Buddha
who will not break a mudra to wipe a dripping brow

Practice

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / tagged Spirituality / September 3, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

for Aikido master Larry Novick and my father

All the Gurus of the East
teach their pupils that it’s best
to start each and every day
with a special way to pray

Meditation or breath they say
will set and keep you on the path

All the farmer fathers of the West
teach their pupils the same way

Chores it is and forking hay
and hay that used to be hay
and calmness ping and rhythm
in the milking of the sacred cow

Motherin Up

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / April 29, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes you lose a cow
sometimes you lose a calf

You wrap the orphan in the dead calf's skin and the mother takes her in like kin
Gold enough there for a country song
It's a hurting song - you can sing along
About true love died and true love gone and foolin yourself just long enough to keep on keeping on

Co-boss

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / April 28, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Co-boss, Co-boss
to call the Holstein home

Co-boss, Co-boss and she comes
in full-udder-rocking rhythm
along the well-trod pasture path

Steps careful into the shadows
and hoof clicks to the second stall
for the evening exchange of gifts

Relief and oats and hay for her
warm milk for the kittens and me
cream and butter for the kitchen

Co-boss, Co-boss to say
equal partners in a gentle way

Children Have

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Manure, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / April 15, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Author with sister Pat (Patsy then) smelling the snow back on the ranch

1 Reply

The Innocence of Snow

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / March 12, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Winter was winter and all the world
When the only light was lamp and the only power God
and the innocence of snow lay soft on lad and land
When floating breath of kin and kine
was pure and white as well
and mankind too as far as we could tell
Antennae daily now
break down that door with news of war

Winter on the ranch Kin = Family & Kine = Cattle

Cowboy Confessions

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / December 22, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Even after
all those hundreds and hundreds herded
he’d not given that much thought to cows

Never got the hot shock of the branding
or the pain of seven stomach aches at once

And all that bawling after weaning
more his lack of sleep than their grieving

The Question

Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / June 25, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There’s dad sitting
by the after branding fire
with some after branding beers

And we get to talking
heart to heart
of trails together and apart

And of the things we saw
which ones brought us awe

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Eda Lishman on How I Lost My Faith – In PreachersMarch 3, 2026
An epic moment for seven year olds! Wow how many lessons can you have in one incident? And a few…
Nancy Fierstien on A Tear for the RichFebruary 23, 2026
Another gem worth it's weight in gold from you, Neil Meili!
Sandi Hebley on Lonely LightFebruary 12, 2026
How sweet!
Anonymous on CirclesJanuary 18, 2026
Both Gloria and I were touched by your poem. Congrats. Tom and Gloria
LeoraLawrence Porter on Sacred DanceJanuary 18, 2026
Thank you, from an unknowing dancing healer! as for my liking… While I greatly, greatly appreciate your clarity of voice…

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