Farm – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Farm

The Berries

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / November 19, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Big machines need room to turn

Grandfather’s ten thousand trees
pride of the prairie give way to the plow

and we no longer visit our younger selves
purple-mouthed joyful among his saskatoons

Racing Horse Flies

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / November 5, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If they can bite
through the hide of a horse
what chance yours

If, fastest insect in the world
they can take off
at 145 kilometers per hour
(87 mph to US and old school)
what chance your slap

And where to hide from that many eyes

Image of Band-Eyed Brown Horse Fly by Erik Karits from Pixabay

Farm and Ranch Nowadays

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / October 19, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Tractors keep getting bigger
combines and chemicals too

Ranching a hundred years
a horse a saddle and a rope

Author’s Uncle Arnold on Wallis tractor, Saskatchewan 1928

Not in Kansas Anymore

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Travel / October 17, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Bill grew up
in soft-furred hills and sea-flat plains
Might as well been me
in the south parts of Saskatchewan

Water rare as pearls
set us both on a lifetime seeking

Tin-dipper thirst
and big dipper quenching — Photo of dirt road on the old Saskatchewan ranch

Poet William Stafford born in Hutchingson, Kansas

2020 Cowboy

Audio Recordings, Farm, Haiku, Ranch Life / tagged Covid19 / October 5, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Back to the ranch Vance
coyotes ain’t got no covid
sun goin’ down not me

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

Technology

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Horses / October 3, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The day breathed in
and the day breathed out

After lunch my father took a nap
– the horses had to rest

By supper time they were fed
fed and brushed and thanked

And then the tractors came
– and tractors do not nap

Not content with that small theft
they soon grew lights and stole the dark

He fed them gas, they pulled the plow

But not once, one to the other
did they ever speak of love

Great Uncle Tony and Uncle Werner at seeding time – a long time ago

Holding Up The Line

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / September 29, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Barista, Barista if only you knew
what I'd like to order from you

Barista, Barista
please, if you please
cold coffee in a Mason jar
like Momma sent to the fields
at harvest and at haying time

That much sugar
and that much cream
and no one wiped the lip
when they passed it round

Barista, barista
there's nothing I see
on that long fancy menu for me

I guess
I just came in to smell the coffee

Home Made Ice Cream

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / September 28, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I was five we lived on a ranch
still forty miles and forty years
away from electric power

We only got to eat ice cream
when hail lay deep enough on the ground
to be scooped into the old hand mixer

Many a hot evening in August and July
five of us sat on those hard ranch steps
looking out at the Western sky

Watching the black clouds and the grey
building and rolling our way

Silently praying our protestant Hail Marys
four for and Dad against

Dogs and Boys

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / September 27, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Twenty thousand years
they walked the plains together

The boy did not know that
The dog did not know that

Author’s Uncle Bruce with Pepper circa 1928

New Hay

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Harvest / September 26, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The scent of hay
thrown upward in the cutting

Too rich and heavy to remain aloft
falls back to lie among its fallen friends

Walk shuffling small feet through it
and it lifts again in clouds to nostrils

Breathed in sweet particles remain
I do believe … there’s some there yet

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