Ranch Life – Page 21 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Ranch Life

Cookies on the Ranch

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Baking, Childhood, Food, Mother / February 10, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Stars press their simple shapes into the sky - Dorianne Laux

Mom had shapers of thinnest tin
to make the stars and quarter moons

In a house this size and drafty
there was no way or wish to hide
from doors from the old wood stove
building building to the dawn of done

Snow Blind

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged memories, Winter / February 7, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Snow on the backs of cattle
snow on the shovel lifting
snow on the sled hill squifting
snow on the ice road surfing
snow on the shed roof aching
snow in the memories binding
snow in the diamonds blinding

This Cold

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Snow, Winter / February 6, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This cold the snow squeaks underfoot
all the way from house to barn

as if in protest gainst the added pain
of stepping on each flake's
fragile frostbit fingers

Courage Down the Well

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Tenacity / January 27, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Arthur Fisher for example
who sold the ranch to Dad
and gave me my first name
and a lake-stone ring he’d made

All alone in
the twenties dug a well by the house
lowering himself into a dark dirt shaft
that could cave him dead at any second

100 feet down, an inch at a time
and how did he get the heavy bucket up

How did he feel when he hit the capstone
picked up the pickaxe and the shovel
moved a hundred feet and started again

Frost Bite

Audio Recordings, Environment, Nature, Personal Growth, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Grief, Healing, Heartbreak, Winter / January 20, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On the prairies they know
that you have to use snow

In January on the Wood River
the laces got wet and then stiff
and could not be untied

Walked the wimpering long mile home
in one frozen skate and one warm boot
part of my foot and all my toes
numb and milky white

On the prairies they know
that you have to use snow

Too much warmth all at once
can bring the feeling rushing back
with more pain than you can stand

I have since learned
- and this is the hard part-
It is the same way with the heart

The Silence of Sleighs

Audio Recordings, Environment, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering, Travel / January 8, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My earliest memories do not have a sound track

The steppes of Canada are the steppes of Russia
Zhivago watching Lara leave ... without her song

The horse’s hooves
compressing snow to greater silence
the runners sinking softly into silence
skimming surface of silence
stretching out the notes of silence

The bells on the horse . . . . . . were there bells

Watched Dr. Zhivago last night with family

The Innocence of Snow

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, News, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / January 2, 2023 / 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

Christmas Cards

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering, Travel / December 24, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Back when mail was mail
and jam came in a pail
(with strawberries big as your thumb)
the thing I most remember
are the envelopes of December

It didn't surprise us
that Santa came by sleigh
anybody to get to our ranch
would have had to come by sleigh

so they came by card instead
and helped us light each clip-on candle
around the popcorned tree

After the Christmas Party

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Blizzard, Prairie Life, Survival / December 23, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Anitfreeze or whisky
too much or too little you're in trouble

This is the scene that you would see
if the swirling snow would let you

A young man in an old Ford truck
heading West at three miles an hour

Driver's window open arm extended full length
Mittened hand holding twelve volt spotlight
beam groping the ridge along the graveled lane

Two feet from death on one side
ten on the other, and happy

2 Replies

Only One Boss in the Corral

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / November 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you're in the corral at roundup time
you better be ready to think or listen fast

When half a ton of fear-blind beef
has a horn lined up with your ass
and the boss says jump you jump

Democracy is a thing of beauty
but there’s a time and a place for that

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NEIL MEILI on Grocery Shopping in AustinDecember 13, 2025
Thanks Pamela, Love to see some of your haiku and you and Pamela in the new year. All blessings, Neil…
pat psooy on Saturday Night in AustinDecember 6, 2025
Kinda like that better than the shining lights of Vegas
Pamela on Grocery Shopping in AustinDecember 5, 2025
Hi Neil! And Neil is still Neil! Hoping to see you and Dorsey in the new year. My poems have…
Nancy Fierstien on Don’t Judge A House By Its CoverDecember 3, 2025
Another terse verse way to capture the way I feel about living under a blue tin roof for almost 30…
Iudita Harlan on Longing for FamilyNovember 26, 2025
Neil Lovely poem. Sending love to you and Darcy. Iudita

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