Family – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Family

The Inner Critic

Audio Recordings, Family, Personal Growth / tagged Compassion, Doubt, Fear, Patterns, Shame / June 29, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Poor little Keystone Cop
(although often not so funny)
leaping from shoulder to shoulder
trying so hard to keep us safe
Yelling or whispering in each ear
the old rules based on fear

Telling us
what we should have done
and what we should never do
enforcing rules learned long ago
that may no longer be true

The voice of your mother still
nags when your room's not neat
The voice of your father
still wants you up at dawn

Your teacher and your coach
Your country and your culture
Your parents and your younger selves
with messages to keep you safe

The cop only knows
what he used to know
and still does what he was told to do
You don't have to destroy him
or shove him out the door

Just put your arm around him
and tell him
you're no longer four

It Helped at the Time

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Grief, Numbing, Sugar / June 23, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Today I visited the graves of my parents
flowers for my mother
tobacco for my father
and chocolate for the orphan boy

He had a stomack ache later
but it sure helped at the time

Sweet Memories

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Denial, Diabetes / June 22, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My mother's mother
lost a leg in the sugar wars

We dragged our butts across town to see her
she dragged hers across the hosue to serve us

You would think that each visit
might have served as a caution

But, as young minds
may twist and stay twisted

I took away instead
an infinite ability to ignore the obvious

and a taste for milk and ginger cookies

Grandma Brander

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Games / June 21, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mother would sometimes stop our play and send us to visit her mother in that little white house

She may have had grand stories to tell, about her childhood in England and Ontario and her brother lost at sea, and our grandfather whom we'd never met

What was he like - were we like him - Would we want to be

It was a leap we never took, and spent afternoons in leaps more comfortable to us all - small colourd marbles over small coloured marbles in the inscrutability of Chinese Checkers

Mossbank Mostly Moss

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Small Town / June 19, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mossbank, Saskatchewan, circa 1955

Flowers For My Father

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Adoration, Regret / June 15, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

As awed as I was
by so much of my father

As many questions as I didn't ask

The biggest waiting
for some moment on a cloud

is "Tell me of your awe"

Don’t Pet the Piranhas

Audio Recordings, Family, Nature / tagged Animals, Captivity, Freedom, Protection, Restrictions / June 14, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don't Pet the Piranhas
and other things to learn about zoos

The tiger did not get his stripes
from a suntan through these bars

The giraffes did not get those necks
from trying to see Africa from here

Your parents meant well and so do the keepers

This is not why the hyena is laughing

To the Zoo

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Travel / tagged Adventure, Connection, Gratitude, Joy / June 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I went to the Zoo with you
I went to the Zoo with you

There were lions and tigers and elephants
and cotton candy too

but I went to the Zoo with you
with you, with you, with you

Mother’s Day

Audio Recordings, Family, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Appreciation, Gifts / May 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Before Hallmark got ahold of it

Mother's day was not
the second Sunday in May

Less commerce
but more meaning by far

in spring's first crocus
in a jelly jar

The Farmer’s Daughter

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood, Delight, Wonder / May 7, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

That little skipping step
the white cotton dress
the pebbles rolling down the path

The sunflowers turning
to watch her as she passes

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You've certainly captured these crazy times with finesse and grace, my Friend!
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I'm betting "slow motion" was never your style!

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