Family – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Family

Over Their Shoulders

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Drought, Fear, Hope, Optimism, Outlook, Patterns, Preparation / September 7, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

He came of age in the twenties
Bumper crops and a big new house

She came of age in the thirties
Dust and alkali in your pie and eye

When things started to look good
he'd buy a big new shiny car

Those times are coming back

When things started looking good
she'd can a bunch more fruit

Those times might be coming back

Mother’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Care, Love / August 5, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The kitchen has always been the center of the universe of any farm or ranch

She feeds their sleepy forms in morning
clothes them for the cold or warm
and prays them safe from harm

Looks out her window to the east
where barn shadows and rolling hills
greet them as they start their day

Men in firm direction to their work
children scattering to play

Then south across the lake to catch the water's mood foretelling wind or calm

Sometimes sees in morning
mirages of cutbanks rising
like mountains along the Eastern shore

Or more directly to the south
forms of her neighbour's homes rising and shimmering like memories of her youth

Seasons spiral out and in from this center
crocus and buttercups in the greening grass
cactus flowers and the joy of newborn calves

The growing season of the grain
and golden glory of a well stooked field

The shortening of days into winter
and the ever present stars
joined by the dance of northern lights

Within each season she has watched the play of seasons of each day
men returning from roundup
children from their play

While she waits always at the center
to warm and love

and safely tuck away

Mom and brother Wally in the ranch kitchen 1952

The Cellar

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Basement, memories / August 3, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Rough as a cave
floor of hard-packed dirt
and eastern wall at a wicked slant
where the forming gave as cement was poured

Root cellar and walls of jars
The sisters remember lizards
not being afraid of lizards I don’t

Giant rumbling one-vent furnace
that sent our survival heat straight up
to find its way through leaky house any way it could

Children on a ranch can find anywhere to play
- Not there

Memories of Three or Four

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / August 2, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember being nestled ='
in that old ranch kitchen
deep in the warmth of washday Monday

The Maytag's liquid sounds mixing
with the gentle driving chugs
of the little gas engine

Sloshing and chugging sloshing and chugging
as I curled up beside it
in the great pile of laundry
rich with the smells of the people I loved

Half asleep half awake I floated there
all my senses safely cradled and warmed
and part of a rhythm and a sound
like a heartbeat in a womb

1 Reply

Wishbone Wish

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia / July 22, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I blow out the candles
and wish for a wishbone
dry as day after thanksgiving

Me and my big sister
pulling on the brittle arms
across the old ranch table

so many candles ago
that neither remember
who got the bigger half

A Funny Story

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Humor / July 21, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the dream I say to brother Wally

You're going to have to tell the story
of the milk I drank way back then
is going to come out my nose again

The Girls Had an Edge

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life / tagged Communication, Connection / July 20, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Me and my brothers
had tractors and trucks and such
you can't talk to tractors and trucks

Sisters with in strollers
had friends always happy
to see the world through their eyes

Why the Collectors Aren’t Collecting My Comic Book Collection

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia / tagged Boys, Childhood, Siblings / July 19, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Peanut butter
bacon, candy and mud

roll em up fold em up
lug them everywhere love

and brothers

Lifebuoy

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood / July 18, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I have never learned to swear very well
which just goes to show that training will tell

That there is much to be said for good homes
and payoffs for stern discipline and hope

It's not that I don't know the words
but they all still taste like soap

Little Church

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Humor, Religion / July 17, 2024 / 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

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Ken Christopher on Sitting in My Father’s DeskSeptember 2, 2024
Very good!, I liked’d the Emily Dickinson one too, powerhouse babe all from the solitude of her room. Shen you…
Ken Christopher on AnnaAugust 30, 2024
Great poem!
Barbara Reichlin on Frank Gehry DesignsAugust 25, 2024
Love it
Nancy Fierstien on Word DivisionsAugust 21, 2024
I'm calling this a "Keeper," Sir...and I thank you very much for sharing it!
Joy on The Useless LakeAugust 12, 2024
That lake A science lesson to discuss the word “mirage “ when the sun was bright . When the cut-banks…

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