Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Childhood

Of Bears and Love

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Childhood, Dreams, Fear, Love / February 26, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sayings From an Old Ranch Kitchen

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Eating, Mother / February 11, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

"Clean off your plate
there are starving people in China"
"Take the last food from the bowls
we'll have a nice day tomorrow"
I never put it together this way
but the people in China
must have always had a nice day

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

With Crayons

Audio Recordings / tagged Art, Childhood, Creativity, Joy / January 15, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A child with crayons
multi coloured fountain
bathe in it today

Children with crayons
multi coloured fountains
swim with them today

Why Gund Doesn’t Make Toy Soldiers

Audio Recordings / tagged Childhood, Choice, Love, Toys, Training, War / January 3, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Photo Credit: Gund bears ‘Love’ and ‘Peace’ courtesy of Evelise Sandidge

Questions For the Next Séance

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Communication, Death / November 4, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dearest Mother;

Sorry to disturb you
in your well deserved bliss,
but here’s a short list
of things that I forgot to ask

And if it isn’t too much trouble
I’d like the answers as detailed as possible

It will be understandable
if you can’t conjure up a voice,
but one rap for yes, and two for no,
on a floating table won’t quite do

However, if you can look up Samuel Morse,
(who may well be bored and available),
he can give you a quick-study course
and I will dust off my old Boy Scout manual
I believe “talk to me” In Morse still becomes:

– •– •–•• –•– – – – – – – •

So, now that we’ve got the hang of it;

– What was the best day of your life
– What was your worst

– Your greatest triumph
– Your greatest disappointment

– What you are happiest that you did
– Saddest that you didn’t

Why exactly did my uncle shoot my dog
Whatever happened to my baseball card collection, with the rookie Mickey Mantle

and what is heaven like

A Funny Story

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Humor / October 5, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the dream I say to brother Wally

You’re going to have to tell the story
or the milk I drank way back then
is going to come out my nose again

Buffalo Chips

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Manure, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood, Play / October 3, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Lily pads floating
on the sea of prairie grass

Heat for the tepees
or the homesteader's cabin

Nothing wasted in the West

And every boy knew
that a good sharp stick or a pointy-toed shoe
would let you know
if one was just right, or still a little too new

And I'm here to tell you, that compared to a good dry chip
meeting a West wind's invitation
a Frisbee is a weak and poor, plastic imitation

Grandma Brander

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Games / July 12, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mother would sometimes stop our play and send us to visit her mother in that little white house
She may have had grand stories to tell, about her childhood in England and Ontario and her brother lost at sea, and our grandfather whom we'd never met
What was he like - Were we like him - Would we want to be
It was a leap we never took, and spent afternoons in leaps more comfortable to us all - small coloured marbles over small coloured marbles in the inscrutability of Chinese Checkers

Blue Spruce

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Birds, Childhood, Play / July 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It may have been about thirty feet tall
taller when you're small

And on the very top would sit
the great horned owl
If the anti-Christ were to have a Christmas tree
he could have capped it as the perfect dark angel
We cowered by the corner of the house
our very blood frozen pretty to his predator eyes
Yet when he flew away
we could snap - as only children can
from fear to play
run to divide the branches and return once more to the soft-needled floor
One little two little three little Indians in our magic tepee in a land of long ago and not so far away

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