Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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An Invitation

Uncategorized / September 21, 2018 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Neil wanders the world in awe – Mirrors and metaphor everywhere. You can join him on this journey with a Poem in your Inbox every day. CLICK HERE to start today

Prairie Labyrinth

Audio Recordings, Farm / tagged First Nations, Indigenous Peoples, Native Americans / September 29, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Back
on the old
Saskatchewan ranch

If there are still places
that the plow
hasn't turned over

How long a
and how quietly
would I have to walk
round the tepee circles

to be invited, if ever, inside

Old Barn Leaning

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / September 28, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Still standing by the grace
of planks to the east
wind to the west

and a world in every
dust mote memory

Memory Lanes

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia / tagged Memory, Work / September 27, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Once again in summer
where prairie blacktop ribbons
over Saskatchewan’s slow rolling hills
past grazing cow and half grown grain

driving on the road I helped to build
back when I was eighteen teen
five hundred years and yesterday ago
hauling asphalt to the spreader
in a truck hot, dirty, and mean
and eating steak for breakfast
with men of tar and grit

still with a smile
each time I pass
a road crew at their work

the odor, odious
to you and almost all
as sweet to me as youth
and lilac in the wind

Highway 2 from Moose Jaw to Mossbank
Photo by author, September 2022

Gravel Lane

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Travel / September 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You turn off the main road
head east over the little rise
down the long slope to the buildings

Crushed rock, crushed again
talking back to your tires

as eloquent as Demosthenes
spitting pebbles by the sea

On ranch-house porch
half a mile away
sight blocked by
trees and hedge

she knows which truck
who’s driving
and what kind of
day you’re having

Saskatchewan Highway 39

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Notre Dame / September 25, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you attended Notre Dame College in Wilcox
and you hitchhiked down that highway
you knew the 39 was for the miles from Moose Jaw

That it ran another 130 miles south to the US border
was of no great important, we weren't going that way

Hugh Carr

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Baseball, Notre Dame, Teacher / September 24, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Hugh Carr had a curve
thrown with an arm half a foot longer than mine
an arm made of rubber mixed with muscle and eyes

That curve would come at you
about three feet high and outside
and as slow as a grade nine getting out of bed

About the time you put your bat down
and got ready to walk to first
it would snap off and break
across the plate

When Hugh Carr taught school
and the second last boy in the very last row in the corner
turned to talk to the very last boy in the very last row in the corner
that long rubber arm would reach back
pick up a chalk brush from the board
and in one graceful flowing motion
bounce it off the head of the boy
turning around in the back

Hugh Carr had a curve - but this was a fastball

Exemplum Trahit – Example Draws

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Notre Dame, Teacher / September 23, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Motto of 1955 Bachelor of Arts graduates
At Notre Dame in grade ten
the coach taught English too

No course outline to guide
and no homework for us or him

Cy would bow
his blond adonis head
into an ancient book of verse

and read it with such love
we had no choice but to follow him

In loving memory of Cy (Pope) MacDonald

Memories of Frank

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Relationships / tagged Coach, Mentor, Notre Dame, Pere, School, Teacher / September 22, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In 1955
me and my parents drive
the summer deserted streets of Wilcox
trying to figure out
where the college might be

and come upon a tall young man
nailing siding to a building

It is Frank Germann
who guides us to Pere
Guided me through years of college
and in many ways still guides me to this day

It my be metaphorically perfect to have
first seen Frank with a hammer in his hand

Just as Pere was not only the builder
but also the material with which God built

So was Frank

1 Reply

You Can’t Steer from Steerage

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Travel / tagged Destiny, Leadership / September 21, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The bottom of the boat
doesn’t get a vote

You may be escaping chains
or in them

You may be traveling
to a whole new world
where all of this is
supposed to change

Someday you
might become the captain

What Charles Can’t Say Anymore

Audio Recordings, Environment, Family, Personal Growth / tagged Duty, King Charles III, Queen Elizabeth II, Self Expression / September 20, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The planet is warming
the rain forest is burning
much modern architecture sucks

When you get to be the king
you no longer get to do your thing
at least not the way you used to do it

Unlike his mom he can't just wear
a suit of yellow and a flower of blue
to show Ukraine that his heart is there

They say his mother never set a foot wrong

This may be a little too much to expect
perhaps he will have to get by remembering
the words of his mentor Laurens van der Post
“if I look after the footsteps, and lengthen my stride,
the miles will take care of themselves.”

South African Sir Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) – was a friend and mentor to Charles, and a godfather to Prince William

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Prairie Labyrinth
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