Relationships – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Relationships

The Gift of Giving

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Generosity / May 16, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Who would want to see
Santa carrying his full sack back
every chimney and all doors blocked

The rivers of the earth all dammed

Greeting card companies out of business

Chefs dying of the hunger to feed

not having the power of Jesus
to multiply the multitudes and
get rid of all that fish

The Quilt

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Relationships / May 15, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

for Meri Walker

You make it using
materials from all your old garments

Clothes that you have worn
for weddings, vacations, births and deaths
all the best days of your life and all the worst

When you give the gift, your friend says
“Thank you, this is perfect
it is sometimes very cold
where I am living at present
and this will get me through the winter”

Mother’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / May 8, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The kitchen has always been the centre of the universe of any farm or ranch
She feeds their sleepy forms in morning clothes them for the cold or warm and prays them safe from harm
Looks out her window to the east where barn shadows and rolling hills greet them as they start their day
Men in firm direction to their work
children scattering to play

Then south across the lake to catch the water's mood foretelling wind or calm
Sometimes sees in morning mirages of cutbanks rising like mountains along the eastern shore
Or more directly to the south forms of her old neighbours homes rising and shimmering like memories of her youth
Seasons spiral out and in from this centre crocus and buttercups in the greening grass
cactus flowers and the joy of newborn calves
The growing season of the grain
and golden glory of a well stocked field
The shortening of days into winter and the every present stars joined by the dance of northern lights
Within each season she has watched the play of seasons of each day
men return from roundup children from their play

While she waits always at the centre to warm and love and feed
and safely tuck away

Mom and brother Wally in the ranch kitchen 1952

Neighborly

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Travel / May 3, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On gravel roads
there are three tracks not four

Nobody gets to pass anybody
without noticing they're there

Courtesy and survival still
well entwined out where folks are few

Circling Back

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry, Relationships, Remembering / April 24, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

All those
long days of youth
before I was a poet
lived but not noted

I go back now
guided by bend grass
and broken branches

Attaching toe tags of meaning
to departed days and friends

1 Reply

Dead Letter Office

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Death, Loneliness, Writing / April 23, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

So many I used to send to you
so many times I still reach for a pen

Letters to Santa don't require an answer
through presents are often hoped for

So, maybe I could start writing again

They can put them in a sack with his
I already have the presents

I Haven’t Written Lately

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / April 22, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I haven't written lately
any narcissism poems

I haven't written lately
of loves too soon too long gone

I haven't written lately
of how their eyes were waters
where I saw myself the loveliest

1 Reply

Judy

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Grief, Regret, Suicide / April 21, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Judy was a beauty
tall and blonde and shy
early this month she decided to die

The soft wise eyes, the curling lashes
all now ashes

We have been friends for twenty years
hugs and coffee when in town, cards when far away

And always the latest poetry

She said it was important, and it touched her
in places nothing and no one else could reach

Three years ago
I put my neck in a green eyed noose

I sent no cards, I did not call

I do not know if I could have saved her
though touch and poetry have been known to

I only know I hate what I did and didn’t do
I only know that she drowned out there alone
I only know it was a long time since I had thrown her a line

They Go to Prepare a Place

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Death / April 20, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It may not
be fatal to be loved by me
but sometimes it seems to be

I will not here name the names
most you will find in other poems
filled with yearnings of other homes

The Way Joy Makes You Sad

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Grief / April 19, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How the train of memory
takes you back to then and there
and all that bliss that got you there

Then quickly shunts to a side siding
or goes full gravel off the track
to grind to a halt at not coming back

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