Audio Recordings – Page 147 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Audio Recordings

Learning From Grandparents

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged grandparents / July 11, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

From my Swiss grandfather
who dreamed and grew a prairie Eden
combining Europe and Hy-Brasil
I learned the impossible is possible

From my English grandmother
I learned that niceness is very nice
but you can leave feeling empty
except for cookies and milk

From my father's mother
and mother's father
I learned that early death
is a form of theft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasil_(mythical_island)

Growing Stones

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / July 10, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Each spring on our farm
the old father sun turned up his warmth and
charm
melting the frost deep in the heart of the mother
earth

The
egg babies
thereby created
rose to the surface
to play in the open air
mischievous miscreants all
waiting to jamb diskers and drills
and if they get a little grain to hide in
ambush swathers, combines, and oil pans of
grain trucks

so we had to gather them into
school bus stone boats and wagons and haul
them off to places where they could be with their
older brothers and sisters on the reform school
rock pile

there is still some hope
that someday they can learn to be pillars of the
community

Blue Spruce

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Birds, Childhood, Play / July 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It may have been about thirty feet tall
taller when you're small

And on the very top would sit
the great horned owl
If the anti-Christ were to have a Christmas tree
he could have capped it as the perfect dark angel
We cowered by the corner of the house
our very blood frozen pretty to his predator eyes
Yet when he flew away
we could snap - as only children can
from fear to play
run to divide the branches and return once more to the soft-needled floor
One little two little three little Indians in our magic tepee in a land of long ago and not so far away

1 Reply

Blue-Eyed Boy

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Dog, Freedom, Joy / July 8, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Blue-eyed boy blasts off from breakfast
like a quail on a rail
Collie dog leaps on board
and they're off across the prairies
barely touching the tops of hills
Sun gives warmth or cloud gives shade
all depending on his whim
birds and rocks and swaying grass
everything living embraces him
Burrs don't stick and thorns don't prick
even fences joining in the play
happily turn their barbs away
Floating along on the wings of four
won't be long till they slam that door

2 Replies

Memories of Three or Four

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Childhood / July 7, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember being nestled
in that old dance kitchen
deep in the warmth of washday Monday
The Maytag's liquid sounds mixing
with the gentle driving chugs
of the little gas engine
Sloshing and chugging sloshing and chugging
as I curled up beside it
in the great pile of laundry
rich with the smells of the people I loved
Half asleep half awake I floated there
all my senses safely cradles and warmed
and part of a rhythm and a sound
like a heartbeat in a womb

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

Basketball in Canada

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Sports / July 2, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Driving south on Ontario Highway 49
there was a sign on the left pointing
to the birthplace of basketball's inventor
About a mile down a narrow road
a small wooden house on the left
In the yard a paved rectangle
a basketball hoop and some balls
There have been
great teams and dynasties
that height and talent kept me from
But here on a sunny Sunday
I played James Naismith one on one

James Naismith – Inventor of the game of basketball

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Anonymous on Rule BritannicaNovember 6, 2026
Amen to that.
Sandi Hebley on Ready for WinterOctober 26, 2026
😁😁
NEIL MEILI on Laughing With the DeadOctober 25, 2026
Thanks for the story Sandi, And bet he is and that I would have liked him Neil
Sandi Hebley on Okay Now – MostlyOctober 22, 2026
🤗
Sandi Hebley on Laughing With the DeadOctober 21, 2026
One of my fondest memories is that the last full sentence my dad spoke was to tell a visitor a…

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