Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Survival

Bone Density

Audio Recordings, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / tagged Healing, Horses, Injury, Pain, Survival / October 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Tamped into tensile strength
by a clunk-hoofed pinto
through leg, saddle and spine
to a headache in a Stetson hat

Hardened by the semi
permafrost of prairie winter

Flexible as knowing
drought and rain and pain
that have come and gone
and might come back again

In Translation

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Atomic Bombs, Japan, Reconcilliation, Survival, Survivors, War, WWII / August 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This week is
another Hiroshima anniversary
and this author's poems
are being translated into Japanese

They are in a book
of presence healing pain
what can they look
a Hibakusha in the eye and say

Hibakusha is the name given to those who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which took place 80 years ago this week.

The Spread

Audio Recordings / tagged Cost of Living, Fear, Income, Inflation, Struggle, Survival / June 5, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

"Two hours of pushing broom buys and eight-by-twelve four-bit room" - Roger Miller "King of the Road"

Have you noticed since
whenever it was you started out

That the gap between having nothing and enough
to eat and a safe place to sleep
has been steadily growing year by year

And even them that covered the spread today
aren't sure how long it's going to stay that way

or build fences high enough to keep that fear away

“King of the Road” by Roger Miller

Watching Limbs for Leaves

Audio Recordings, Haiku, Nature / tagged Anticipation, Hope, Spring, Survival / April 21, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Watching limbs for leaves
Which made it through cold winter
Much joy some mourning

Shelter

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Chaos, Forgiveness, Healing, Love, Survival, Uncertainty, War / February 14, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We parked our souls in the shade of the chaos - Bill Holm

Tho around and within us din
we forgave each stumbling sin
'kissed it well' the oft barked shin

and warmed each other in the bed
still the envy of the dead

Very Little House on the Prairie

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Changing Times, Conflict, Survival / June 24, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Out here the land is harsh and unforgiving - Connie Caldor

Yesteryear:
First years on the Saskatchewan prairie my grandparents lived in a house they built
from the packing cases that had carried their all
to keep them from fifty below and a hundred above

Yesterday:
My partner and I
went to the mats
over one degree
on the thermostat

Dia de los Muertos para Sophia

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Pruning, Survival / November 1, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the ice storm last spring
Sophia was dealt such a svelte

She used to be big as a village
now a third of the village is gone

We will leave food and flowers
and a stone where the branches were

Between a Rock and Becoming One

Audio Recordings, News, Personal Growth / tagged Forgiveness, Genocide, Survival, Terror / October 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A survivor of the Rwandan genocide
whose family did not escape it with him
says you become what you cannot forgive

In these days of new of worlds of woe
we can add a thousand a day to not forgive

Like that man made wise by pain
can we avoid the plaster setting firm
like him find a way to forgive and live again

1 Reply

Putting Up Preserves

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Canning, Garden, Harvest, Preserving, Survival, Vegetables / September 22, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On the prairies thegarden is one word

While Dad and us boys are filling the bins
Mom and the girls are mustarding beans and pickling beets
filling Mason jars with a winter of good eats
then sealing them tight with red rubber rings

We are singing, it remembers like a song
A Canning time - Canning time - sing along

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

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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!
Sandi Hebley on Dad and Death at WarAugust 4, 2025
😢
Sandi Hebley on One for the AuntiesAugust 3, 2025
Wow!

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