Ranch Life – Page 24 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Ranch Life

Motherin’ Up

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Coping, Grief / September 14, 2022 / 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 hurtin song - you can sing along
About true love died and true love gone
and foolin yourself just long enough
to keep on keeping on

Peace on the Prairie

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / September 13, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The Berries

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / September 5, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cloud Plowed Fields

Audio Recordings, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / August 14, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I hear that line at an Austin open mic.
and I want it - actually I want it back
this is my line, how did he find it first

In any case - I hear the line, and Bam!
I am back in a cloud-scudding sun-baking
Saskatchewan summer fallow summer

Black lands between the glowing gold
John Deere with its hard iron hooves
ripping up the roots and seeds
of the flowers no-one wanted
call them weeds

Sometimes cutting worms in half
(I hear that they grow back)

While the little poet sits
by the caragana hedge
choking on the flowers no-one wanted

Can’t Take the Farm Out of the Boy

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / August 13, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

What I learned
of poetry from my father
is that the tractor signs
at just this RPM

Author and his dad on Oliver 88 tractor

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Cowboys & Ranchers

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / August 12, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cowboys may love their horses
but it's the ranchers love the cows

The cowboys know it's their job to keep them critters safe
and pay and found depends
on their not coming to bad ends

But you won't catch a cowboy
with a soft light in his eye
counting again by one and ten
every head in the holding pen

And ranchers ain't so likely
when the summer flies are high
and the herd a scattered mess
to wish them all in a warmer place
than the sun-baked August West

Prairie Ear

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life / August 10, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Outer ear gathering
sounds of birds and wind
and hooves on spring grasses

Playing them soft on the drum
as hammer and anvil and stirrup
pass on the faint creaking leather
of my old Texas boot in the stirrup

Ripples wave down inner membranes
and tiny thousands of hair cells
move like grass in the valley
From pressure to impulse
and from sound to
symbol of
sound

All floating in the liquid balance of an easy lope

Three Draft Horses

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Horses / July 29, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On the ranch, ride before you walk
with big sister's brave behind my scared

Grandfather's big Clyde, top as wide as a table

The jackhammer hoofed plug at Al's in Idaho
while Dorsey gets to ride the silk-paced Arab
Chilalry is not dead, but it has a sore ass

May they all chomp
the hay of heaven while I flesh them

Go Gently

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / July 27, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When you break horses and break land
you end up with broken horses and broken land
When you approach
with the reverence of a listening friend
It is amazing how far they are willing to carry you

Mother’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / July 23, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

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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…
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Neil Lovely poem. Sending love to you and Darcy. Iudita

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