Cows – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cows

Where News is News

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, News, Ranch Life / tagged NASA, Small Town, Space Travel / August 4, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On April 16th 1972
Apollo 16 blasted off
for a landing on the moon

While on a farm
just outside Coderre Saskatchewan
a two headed calf was being born

For 50 miles
in all directions
one was bigger news than the other

Dreams of My Father

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Dreams / July 20, 2023 / 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

Little Brown Jug

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Music / July 19, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father had three sons

and taught them all
how to tie a grain sack, how to cut a calf
how to talk to a horse you walked up behind so you wouldn't get kicked or killed

Good things to know
but none of us is working cattle now

He played a mean harmonica
would that he would have taught us that

One of author’s father’s favorite tunes. Here done by Glenn Miller

1 Reply

Roundup

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Branding, Work / July 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It's about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get

The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick fro a good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face out where the boys with the hot irons can record the feat

Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above and through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys where a slip was made or a kick well placed

At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment

Completely released from the wheel of desire
There's no place you'd rather be
There's no one you'd rather be with
and you're too damned tired to move anyway

Cowboys Will Be Boys

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / April 30, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How funny is it
to be kicked by a cow
(at least compared to a horse)

Depends a lot
if it happens to you
or to your tightest friend

(By tight I mean
both close and liquored up)

Just one of those jokes
that girls don’t seem to get
not even in the calving pen

At least I’ve never seen
them doing their damndest
to get the one with broken ribs
to laugh so they can see them cry

1 Reply

The Innocence of Snow

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, News, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / January 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Winter
was winter
and all the world

When the only light was lamp
and the only power God
and the innocence of snow
lay soft on lad and land

When floating breath of kin and kine
was pure and white as well
and mankind too as far as we could tell

Antennae daily now
break down that door with news of war

Winter on the ranch
Kin = Family & Kine = Cattle

Only One Boss in the Corral

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / November 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you're in the corral at roundup time
you better be ready to think or listen fast

When half a ton of fear-blind beef
has a horn lined up with your ass
and the boss says jump you jump

Democracy is a thing of beauty
but there’s a time and a place for that

For Mary Who Loves Horses

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Boundries / November 22, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I have ridden the fence line
without believing in fences

I have been one with the movement of horse
the strength and speed of horse
the grace of horse and the soul of horse

I have been one with the wind
and the high rolling hills
and the sky

I have stepped down
with my hands filled with staples and pliers

For the welfare of cattle and neighbours
who still have need of believing
in fences

Herding Poems

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / November 19, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Herding Poems
(for Patricia)

My father had sons
to help him herd the cows

I have a daughter
to help me herd the poems

He had ten thousand acres
we have all the acres of the world

His won ribbons at the feeder show
ours, when entered, won some prizes too

He would stand for hours
to watch them feeding and grown fat

I sometimes get out a book and do just that

All They Survey

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Appreciation, Pride / November 18, 2022 / 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

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Sandi Hebley on How Fallen AngelsAugust 17, 2025
Indeed!
Nancy Fierstien on Unremember ThatAugust 16, 2025
Gonna be inclined to share this one at my Poets' Tea reading tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Neil!
Sandi Hebley on Memory Lane JoggingAugust 5, 2025
Lovely!
Sandi Hebley on Dad and Death at WarAugust 4, 2025
😢
Sandi Hebley on One for the AuntiesAugust 3, 2025
Wow!

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