Family – Page 2 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Family

Grandfather’s Moustache

Audio Recordings, Family, Travel / tagged Hair, Scent, Smells / June 26, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The moustaches
of my grandfather and Carl Jung
(Twins separated at birth)
have lives of their own

Jung's stays in Switzerland
combing the unconscious

My grandfather's travels to Brazil and to Canada
gathers rainforest moisture, dirty thirties dirt
and remnants of strong cheese and pipe smoke
(Carl's certainly contains some of that too)

When grandfather sneezes, I get to share it all

Things Dad Didn’t Have to Do

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Modern Life, Technology / June 25, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Image thanks to Bessi at Pixabay

Father’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Family, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Care, Comfort, Death, Grief, Loss, Nurturing / June 24, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father's poems
did not come down to us on paper

He was eight years old when his mother died
his youngest brother not yet three

They say he adopted the care
of the sweet sad child
and told him a story each night

Night after night after night
new stories he made up each night

And he would gather him up in the story
and hold him there
until he slept

Hugless in Saskatchewan

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Childhood / June 22, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I grew up in a time
when fathers did not hug
their children
and even less there sons

All my grandchildren
now have sore ribs
in my making up for that

Image by Imtiyaz Quraishi from Pixabay

The Question

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Connection, Conversation, Sharing / June 21, 2026 / 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 one brought us awe

Buicks

Audio Recordings, Family, Haiku / tagged Cars, Confidence, Success / June 20, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Our father drove Buicks
we knew that we would succeed
the road had been paved

Roses in My Rear View Mirror

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged memories / June 8, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(and a few bluebonnets too)

There's a family always laughing
There are girls, and they're all smiling

There's a collie dog a roaming
chasing gophers down their holes

There's a ranch with grass all greening
fifteen minutes after rain

Maybe you can go home again

The Albums

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Aging, Connection, Pictures / June 6, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mother's shrinkage was marked by domicile

House, apartment, retirement and nursing home
shedding at each move, furniture, china and art
except for, and never, the old photo albums
heavy in padded leather brown and green

Each visit when conversation stuttered to a stall
(Religion all but Baptist drowned and what use is weather without crops)
out would come the albums
and in we all would dive
for pennies bright and shiny
at the bottom of the pool

Here's one from 1958
How young the queen looked then

1 Reply

Cousins Round the Campfire

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / June 5, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Green twig pals by blaze
one will bend up one bend down
one will tell the town

Author age 12 with cousins Wayne and Lyle

Cousin Wayne

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Alcohol, Death, Innocence, Regret / June 4, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When Wayne was thirteen
he had the finest blondest hair
the finest features and the finest mind
of all the cousins round

A city boy and cooler about everything than all of us
until we took him hunting

When his first shot hit the rabbit
he ran and cried and held it til it died

At eighteen he quit school with A grades
a month before graduation to get a jump on a job
met a girl and bragged of achievement on first date

Over achievement it turned out to be
quick marriage, quick, two children, three

Army for security, liquor for the pain
it was twenty years before I saw him again

He was in a downstairs bar
sitting there as coarse and thick as adobe brick

I wanted to roll it all back
reach in for the lost fineness and yank it all inside out

And hold him like the rabbit when he cried
still innocent when it died

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Beautiful
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Thank you, crazy poet!
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