Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Pioneers

Survival Groups

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Adversity, Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, Community, Pioneers, Survival, War / May 27, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Small and tight and all their might
to make sure the group survives
knowing that if it don’t they won’t

A family on a prairie farm
an army unit in a shooting war

A group of boys in a Wilcox shack
a load of coal from death by frost

No reunions like their reunions

One for the Aunties

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Pioneers / July 16, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Who midwifed my father into the world in a packing crate shack in 1912
And washed up and went home
without mentioning the blessed event to the government (and no one else did either)
Forty years later
he applies for a passport and finds that he doesn't exist
Until they swear on their memory
and bring him into the world again

Homesteaders’ Cabins

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Pioneers, Prairie, Settlers / July 6, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Homesteaders' cabins
ghosts of courage and hope
wind through their ribs

The Lonely Men

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Loneliness, Pioneers, Settlers / July 5, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Their little dark houses still dotted the prairie when I was growing up
They all seemed to cling to the soil as if their life force had all been used up in the long and difficult transplanting, and they could hold on but no longer grow
Or they stood alone and surrounded by sadness and the small and smaller markers of what had fallen to the reaper's scythe

Their roots, loosened year after year
by the hot winds and the deep frosts
became more and more brittle
Until one by one they broke off
like tumbleweeds
and were gone

Sons of the Pioneers

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged History, Pioneers, Settlers / July 4, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A man in bronze behind a plow
tops a memorial to the settlers
in front of the fading church

The names of the men
and the years they arrived
my grandfather Emil among them
decorate the plaques below

Thistles catch for a moment and roll by

As nameless as the women
who worked side by side

Horizons Aren’t Equal Out Here

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Pioneers, Settlers / July 3, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The East is fine
for colour on the way to the barn
but by the time the chores are done it's gone

The rest of the day we watch the West

That's where the weather comes from

That's the direction the grandfathers faced
when they got this far and found
what they were looking for
or gave up
unhitched the horses
and sat down to watch the sun set

Horizons Aren’t Equal Out Here

Audio Recordings, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Pioneers / October 4, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The East is fine
for color on the way to the barn
but by the time the chores are done it’s gone

The rest of the day we watch the West

That’s where the weather comes from

That’s the direction the grandfathers faced
when they got this far and found
what they were looking for
or gave up
unhitched the horses
and sat down to watch the sun set

North of the barn – facing West

The Lonely Men

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Pioneers / January 13, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

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