Cows – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cows

Cowboy Confessions

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / December 22, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Even after
all those hundreds and hundreds herded
he’d not given that much thought to cows

Never got the hot shock of the branding
or the pain of seven stomach aches at once

And all that bawling after weaning
more his lack of sleep than their grieving

The Question

Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / June 25, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There’s dad sitting
by the after branding fire
with some after branding beers

And we get to talking
heart to heart
of trails together and apart

And of the things we saw
which ones brought us awe

All They Survey

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / June 23, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father
would stand for hours
just looking at his cows

Like God leaning
on a rail fence in heaven
pleased with his creation

Photo by Nadine on Unsplash

1 Reply

Fourteen Hours in the Saddle

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / May 7, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The Farm, The Ranch and the Sweeping Scythe

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Environment, Farm, Manure, Nature, Ranch Life / May 6, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sunrise can be brilly bright
and all day long
everything out to get you

The horse can kick or fall
the bull has horns of steel

Every machine is grinding its teeth
in wait for a chance to bite

and every snowstorm
eager to find you
too far from the barn
and stiffen you like the manure-pile cat

The sunsets worth surviving for

1 Reply

The Farm, The Ranch and the Need for God

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / May 5, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Who pray to when the rains don’t come
who forget to thank when they do

Who curse when the John Deere breaks
and the cow jumps over the moon
(by the moon of course I mean
the fence to the alfalfa field)

Who in the long nights pondering
under stars too cold to be suns
a word big enough for big — Needlepoint picture of “The Old Home Place” by the author’s dad, Walter Meili
which he created as part of rehabilitation following his stroke

1 Reply

Old School

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Education / March 3, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Uncle Emil, a good man
through and through, knew school

Not from being there
but from watching those who had

Four years of university
and he still can’t milk a cow

Red Cattle Haiku

Cattle, Cows, Farm, Haiku, Ranch Life / January 6, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dad loved red cattle
counting sheep though soft and white
would keep him from sleep

1 Reply

Dreams of My Father

Cattle, Cows, Family / tagged Illness / November 14, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Six weeks you lay in that coma
what dreams you had
I never asked, you never said

The telling of dreams
was not a morning ritual in our home

If in grade two
I had been asked of yours
I’d most likely have said
More cows and a better horse

1 Reply

Buffalo Chips

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Manure, Ranch Life / November 6, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Lily pads floating
on the sea of prairie grass

Heat for the tepees
or the homesteaders cabin

Nothing wasted in the West

And every boy knew
that a good sharp stick or a pointy-toed shoe
would let you know
if one was just right, or still a little too new

And I’m here to tell you, that compared to a
good dry chip
meeting a West wind’s invitation
a Frisbee is a weak and poor, plastic imitation

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