October 2024 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: October 2024

How the Tractor Engine

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Harvest, Wheat / October 13, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How the tractor engine sings
in a different key when the sun goes down

Like the stooking gets a little easier
when you've had a few pulls on the water bag

Things you wouldn't notice driving by
fast enough to see us still-life in the field

Threshing Time

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Harvest, Wheat / October 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember at Christmas getting a great threshing machine
a block of wood with wooden spools nailed to the side
but I loved it as I loved the threshing

All through the long summer days I would walk
the fields with my dog
At night my mother rubbed strong liniment on four year old
legs: growing pains she said, although one always hurt
more and didn’t seem to grow any faster

And the grain grew too, and passed me, and was higher
than I was. And then the harvest and the wonder of it falling
to the binder and the magic of the machine as it tied the
sheaves and ke-chunked them into the carrier

Then the stooking – little teepees covering the prairie again
and the golden warmth of everything

And the threshing machine; they wouldn’t let me too close;
it might eat me like it ate those sheaves and like the men
in the crew could eat, and they could eat
even when it rained

While I sat for hours nose to wet window
watching the great gray dinosaur
deep in the timeless mists

And hot clear windless days when everything sang and
the big belt slapped and the machine came to life again
and wagons were on both sides
and the big horses were standing strong and ready
and switching flies with dignity

The sun caught the arch or the long plume of straw and
the chaff lifting and the old hands fed the machine in a
sort of easy sweat-oiled rhyme and the new hands stood
on the sheaves they tried to lift each time

And the old hands laughed, and the new hands laughed
and they were men together

Canada Geese

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Autumn, Guns, Harvest, Hunting / October 11, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The veeing geese fly freer now
across the autumn sky

No longer do they gorge
on my father's golden grain

No longer do I lie in wait
twelve gauge at the ready
to bring them in for dinner

Blind

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Autumn, Birds, Fall, Hunting, Migration / October 10, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Lying on our backs in shallow graves
we've dug in pre-dawn frozen dirt

Golden straw pulled over us
to not be seen by Canada's geese
stopping for breakfast going to Texas

Waiting less time than it seems
to hear the honking and leap up
to exact our tithes on the grain
we and the gods all year provided

Twin Oaks

Audio Recordings, Nature, Relationships / October 9, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On the Cartwright ranch
the one by Corpus Christi
two oaks have grown to form a heart

The trees are of the live oak breed
and bear their leaves all the year
for a thousand years and more

Which may not be
eternal love
but close enough
for Miss C. and me

Border Song

Audio Recordings, Nature, Relationships / tagged Connection / October 8, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Our neighbors
have an oak tree as do we

A fence between
does not prevent their touching tenderly

No passports are required
No border guards stand guard

The bounds of their
affection are not measured yard by yard

When the Bough Breaks

Audio Recordings, Environment, Nature / tagged Change, Destruction, Perspective / October 7, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The top 40 feet of the hammock tree fell
and left but enough for the anchors to hold

Lying there now there's nothing to see but sky

God Didn’t Write No Books

Audio Recordings / tagged Art & Artists, Inspiration, Writers / October 5, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

God didn’t write no books
and those that do are adding to
or subtracting from his greatness

Unless I’m wrong
and he writes each song
and all we do is just humming along

Adam and Eve in Joy

Audio Recordings / tagged Eden, Judgement, Play, sensuality / October 4, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

They had come to the apple grove
(Not a fig tree in sight)
and lay in the grass in the sun

She ran her fingers along his soft scar
and he tickled her tummy
where the belly button wasn’t

And they laughed and laughed and laughed
so long and so loud
that God awoke from his Sunday nap
and you know how he gets when that happens

The Apple

Audio Recordings / tagged Adam, Eden, Eve, Judgement, Knowledge, Labels, Sin / October 3, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

And when all had been named
they ate of the apple
and began to name again

And the names were
Good and Evil
And our mouths
are yet full of that naming
and the taste of that judging

Spit it out
and you are back in the garden

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Ken Christopher on Fowl SupperSeptember 22, 2024
Wonderful poem Neil
Gerri Aiudi on Dad and RoySeptember 21, 2024
great poem ... love it
Ken Christopher on Old Wives Lake MassacreSeptember 11, 2024
Yes!!!!!!
Gerri Aiudi on Old Wives Lake MassacreSeptember 11, 2024
I love this and Stone Hammers
Ken Christopher on Sitting in My Father’s DeskSeptember 2, 2024
Very good!, I liked’d the Emily Dickinson one too, powerhouse babe all from the solitude of her room. Shen you…

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