Remembering – Page 6 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Remembering

Winter in the Barn

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Cats, Horses, Memory / January 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Steam rises off the backs of big horses

The old Holstein in the second stall
shifts her weight from side to side
matching the rhythm of the milking
and flicks her tail at memories
of summer flies

Across the width of the barn
I stand with mouth open
in my biggest five-year-old oval
catching most of the milk
squirted dead-eye straight
by the laughing hired man

In the tack room
kittens wait by a tin plate
to put their morning moustache on

In my memory it is always warm in the barn

Ranch to Ranch by Sleigh

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering, Travel / tagged Horses, Winter / December 28, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Behind big horses winter-haired
kids long mother-readied ready

Hot coals for the foot warmer
heavy buffalo robes for laps
parkas, wooly pants and scarves

Forty below no end of snow
and five freezing miles to go
with complaining never allowed

or at least never aloud

Memories of Santa

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Christmas, Loss, Magic, memories / December 25, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes the best Christmases
are found in photo albums

Remembering Santa Kent who stepped out of our snow globe this year.

Jim

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Persepective, Tobacco / November 26, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

First year on the ranch one of the hands was Jim
seventy years old and Methuselah to my twenty-one

Five foot two with always a chew
never walked but ran wherever he went
tractor to truck, house to barn he never slowed down

Now that I've reached his age and passed it
starting to realize what he might have been running from

An Archaeology of Memory

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Memory / November 25, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Old cowboy in the nursing home
eyes closed
hands moving slow
bunching up and smoothing out
hills lower and higher than the albums show

Gentle that slope for the prairie wool
steepen it a little for the winter sled
push up a mountain for a boy and his dog
lope a meadow for the tall-horsed teen

Back on the ranch again
excavating in the Plasticine

Memory Care

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia, Care, Love, Memory / November 24, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Will the memories I want to remember
last longer than those I'd like to forget

Will I still remember how to tie my shoes
when I've grown too stiff to reach them

Will you be there to remind me of you
will you kindly tie that shoe

For Paul and Linda Fite

1 Reply

Where Were You When

Audio Recordings, Farm, News, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Assassination, Death, John Kennedy / November 22, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The story of how John F. Kennedy was killed
still mixes in with the story of how I heard it

Half a sentence tugging at my greasy sleeve
as I rush from the parts store in Moose Jaw

Picking up more on CBC radio in the pickup
heading west at eighty on Highway One

The urgency of the world waiting
for more news on his condition
not greater in a time of harvest
than my father's anxiety
to get the damn thing fixed
and the crop off before it rained

The moment in time when Kennedy
succumbed to his head woulds
in a Dallas hospital
was lost in the sound of the combine

Thanks Be To Cod

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Cod Liver Oil, Health / November 6, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We were only given
one vitamin in winter
and none in the summer

In summer we had gardens and sun
in winter the oil of the liver of fish
and we got it by big spoons full
not in Nothing going on here capsules

The children of today hardly learn
with opportunes for wisdom wasted
unable to measure how good for you
without the gauge of how bad it tasted

Storm Windows of the Soul

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Prairie Life, Winter / November 5, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Fall in Saskatchewan
and storm windows going up

Three round holes under the flap
for the Father, Son and Holy Ghost
to enter on Sunday
and the exhaust of the Maytag’s
little gas engine to exit on Monday

Nature will be held at bay
family and guests opening a door
will close it slam-ass quick behind them

It will be that way till a warm day in May
when ladders go up windows come down
and the pagan gods rush in again

Dia de los Muertos for Gringos

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Day of the Dead, Death, Memory / November 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Refused a feast
on but one day a year
they nibble at our
every hour

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Nancy Fierstien on Eyes of FriendsNovember 6, 2025
Lovin' this one, line after line!
Nancy Fierstien on Light on LeavesNovember 2, 2025
Yet another favorite of mine! How can I hold back this "THANK YOU!" ???
Sandi Hebley on How Fallen AngelsAugust 17, 2025
Indeed!
Nancy Fierstien on Unremember ThatAugust 16, 2025
Gonna be inclined to share this one at my Poets' Tea reading tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Neil!
Sandi Hebley on Memory Lane JoggingAugust 5, 2025
Lovely!

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