July 2024 – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: July 2024

Athabasca

Audio Recordings, Environment, Nature, Travel / tagged Climate Change, Global Warming / July 10, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Along the Icefields Parkway
(prettiest road in the world)
winding from Lake Louise to Jasper
lies a glacier that feeds three oceans
(Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic)

It takes a hundred years for a snowflake falling on the top to make it to the bottom

Before a snowflake that falls today finishes its journey the glacier may be gone

On the other side of the road in spring
water falls down a long face of rock
They call it the weeping wall
it may still be there

In the Mountain Parks

Audio Recordings, Nature, Travel / July 9, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The beaver does not bother
to stop his building long enough
to slap his tail and dive

The black bear ambles unconcerned
along the flowered motorway
across from the great glacier

You want to be, at least for a day
that mountain goat
hanging impossibly on the slope

I want to be the bighorn sheep
that just passed four feet away
the one with the biggest horns

The Badger

Audio Recordings, Nature, Relationships / July 8, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Observe the badger
creature of the earth

See how she moves
with the grace and ferocity
of tectonic plates

Observe the badger
but do not try to pet
her soft earth softness

Do not let your hand
get caught
between the plates

Wake Turbulence

Audio Recordings, Flight, Travel / tagged Birds / July 7, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Deep in the night the great horned owl

strokes silence with silence

If you land a small plane behind a 747
(Don't land a small plane behind a 747)
If you land a small plane behind a 747
the invisible vortex from its wingtips
can toss you back into the air
or sla you hard
into the ground

Behind the great horned owl
the softness of its passing hangs in the air

Barn Swallows

Audio Recordings, Farm, Flight, Ranch Life / tagged Birds / July 6, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

They swoop
from beneath the eaves
carving an invitation
to the big red ship
Come slip your moorings
and follow us across the sea

To A Grandfather Not Met

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Horses / July 5, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dear Bill

Reading memoirs of your daughter my mother

Stories of how you broke a boxcar of broncs
and sent them on trained and tame

How at every school event
you would be the emcee

Would’ve loved being
there with you
and you living long enough
to be here with me

Hanging on the rail
while I ducked hooves
in the horse corral
and in the audience
of a poetry reading
joining in with the applause

Author’s grandfather with Baby (Uncle Bruce) on Silver. Author’s mother standing alongside – circa 1926

You Don’t Know What Lonely Is

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Death, Loss, Music / July 4, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You can change the strings
on a dead man's guitar
and fool it into following you home

My father played the harmonica
with breath you don't get to forget

1 Reply

Lost Octopus

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Friendship, Loneliness, Pain, Struggle / July 3, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Oh how we flail
when we're hurt and unheard

Surely we can find
somewhere anywhere to connect

One listening friend would be great
and, better yet, two or four or eight

Good Guy Bad Guy

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Good intentions, Public Opinion / July 2, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cowboy rides in
with his white had on to clean up the town

Cleaning up a town can be dirty work
and his hat's getting blacker and blacker

Not long now
Til they ride him out of town on a rail

Canada Day Parade

Audio Recordings, Haiku / tagged Colonialism, History, Patriotism, Pride / July 1, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

What's in a flag Dad
Too complicated to say
Let's wave anyway

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Tom on Basketball in CanadaApril 18, 2025
Neil, as you may know we live about 15 miles from his former farm. The locals have installed a bronze…
Ken Christopher on Hockey Night in CanadaApril 17, 2025
Good one, it’s still goin on
Ken Christopher on ShitstormApril 4, 2025
My former comment had an error, should have read: Great poem Neil, has some slippery elements that mix it up…
Kenneth on Walden PondApril 3, 2025
Siblants interlapping with interference waves construct this delightful hologram of spring: well done my friend
Ken Christopher on Minutia in MarchApril 1, 2025
21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem

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Remembering
String Too Short To Save
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