Ranch Life – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

Skip to content

Home
Contact
Neil’s Books
Poems
Kind Words
A Neil a Day Poems

Category: Ranch Life

Cloud Plowed Fields

Audio Recordings, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / tagged Rejection / August 20, 2026 / 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-on wanted

Old Mower in a Texas Field

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Retirement, Safety / August 19, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The old mower rests its rusty rest
cuttting bar raised in surrender and salute
Timid bluebonnets grow nearer each year
with nothing now to fear

New Hay

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Harvest, Scent / August 18, 2026 / 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 feet through it
and it lifts again in clouds to nostrils

Breathed in sweet particles remain
I do believe ... there's some there yet

Ode to the Farmer

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Accidents, Danger, Death, Harvest, Nourishment, Work / August 17, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport

What flappig empty-fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off
by power take-offs

What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers

And what of those neighbours
dead and true
who for a minute forgetting
what they knew
through red machines
combined with their grain

All these have earned a dusty tear
and many a "who's next" fear

Year after year after year

And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of goodness
are growing
while the world
turns in slow seasons

And he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb
with wheat

The Elevator

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / August 16, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Seed filled erection
proud on the prairie
when the west was young

The Girl From Away

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Attraction, Love, sensuality, Youth / August 15, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I was sixteen, it was summer

Hauling wheat to town in the 3-ton Chevy
A quart of store-bought buttermilk
on the seat for the trip back to the ranch

There was a girl, my age and beautiful
visiting in the last house on the left

Sometimes she would be
on the street or in the yard

The truck was new and powerful
I was farm boy healthy, strong

We were hitting on all cylinders

It was warm, the window was open
I was in love, the butter milk was cold

Holding Up the Line

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / August 13, 2026 / 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

1 Reply

Mirages

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Travel / July 31, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The thing about mirages
I mean the ones on roads
the ones on deserts are all about thirst

The thing about mirages on roads
is that your tires never go flat
and the girl beside you
never moves out from under your arm

Prairie Chicken

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Birds, Courage, Survival / July 8, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I came up through the valley where the homesteaders had tried to make a go of it for a few years, past the tin cans and other evidence of their short stay trying to rust itself back into the ground. Up over the crest of the hill where the Indians had lived for centuries with no more evidence than the weathered rocks of tepee rings

It was spring and I stumbled upon what they may have seen for centuries, the mating ceremony of about twenty-five or thirty grouse. They didn't see or hear me and I stopped about ten yards away and wathched (although my mother might not have thought it proper)

The hens ran around, heads down and tails up in unbashful invitation while the cocks puffed up the air bags in their chests and drummed their challenge

They looked handsome and brave in their posturing and beckoning and their readiness for reckoning and the fights were on, straight on and straight up with spurs and feathers flying

It was vicious but pure
Not a cockfight for the amusement of the bloody-minded, but a way to see that only the strongest would sire the little broods that would have to survive the hawks, and the snakes, and the weather; and all the dangers of a land where it takes a great deal of courage
- just to be a chicken

Grandpa’s Upstairs Porch

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Siblings / June 28, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The only scenery was sky
the only light was lightning

Five of us sibled summer nights
blanketed against the cooling air

Watching storms from forever away
til they rained us to our beds

Post navigation

← Older posts

Newer posts →

Search

Neil’s Latest Book Available in Paperback and Large Print Edition though Amazon worldwide

Social

View zencowboypoet’s profile on Facebook
View @meilineil’s profile on Twitter
View neilmeili’s profile on Instagram

Want More Poetry? Sign Up Here.

Sandi Hebley on Back to SaskatchewanSeptember 17, 2026
💕💕
Sandi Hebley on Breakfast at the Chateau Lake LouiseSeptember 14, 2026
Beautiful!
Sandi Hebley on Three Draft HorsesSeptember 8, 2026
🤣🤣
Sandi Hebley on The BerriesSeptember 5, 2026
Awwwww! 😢 For me it was blackberries!
Sandi Hebley on Cowboy PoetrySeptember 3, 2026
Love this one!

Audio Recordings
Cattle
Cowboy Poetry
Cows
Environment
Family
Farm
Flight
Haiku
Limerick
Manure
Nature
News
Nostalgia
Personal Growth
Pilots
Poems about Poetry
Ranch Life
Relationships
Remembering
String Too Short To Save
Travel
Uncategorized

Tags

Aboriginal Aging Alcohol Art Art & Artists Autumn Beauty Birds Childhood Communication Connection Covid19 Death Dogs Dreams Education Faith Family Fear First Nations Friendship Gratitude Grief Healing Hope Horses Humor Loss Love Mother Music Nature Perspective Poetry Prairie Psychology Ranch Life Regret Religion sensuality Solitude Spring War Winter Wisdom

©2015 Neil Meili. All Right Reserved.

Theme Designed By ThemeVan | Powered by WordPress

Loading Comments...

Write a Comment...

Email

Name

Website