Family – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Family

Mother’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / May 8, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The kitchen has always been the centre of the universe of any farm or ranch
She feeds their sleepy forms in morning clothes them for the cold or warm and prays them safe from harm
Looks out her window to the east where barn shadows and rolling hills greet them as they start their day
Men in firm direction to their work
children scattering to play

Then south across the lake to catch the water's mood foretelling wind or calm
Sometimes sees in morning mirages of cutbanks rising like mountains along the eastern shore
Or more directly to the south forms of her old neighbours homes rising and shimmering like memories of her youth
Seasons spiral out and in from this centre crocus and buttercups in the greening grass
cactus flowers and the joy of newborn calves
The growing season of the grain
and golden glory of a well stocked field
The shortening of days into winter and the every present stars joined by the dance of northern lights
Within each season she has watched the play of seasons of each day
men return from roundup children from their play

While she waits always at the centre to warm and love and feed
and safely tuck away

Mom and brother Wally in the ranch kitchen 1952

Mother’s 1930s

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Death, Fear, Great Depression / May 7, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Helplessly watching
her father dying by inches
and the farm blowing away
medical bill by dust storm

We always thought her fearful
we never thought to ask — Photo attribution: John Steinbeck

Mother on right, with her mother and sister Jean circa 1935

My Mayday Maypole Birthday

Audio Recordings, Family, Haiku / May 1, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

May children dance
laughter wraps with ribbons
spring opens heart

Cousin Wayne

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Alcohol, Regret / April 11, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When Wayne was thirteen
he had the finest blondest hair
the finest features and the finest mind
of all the cousins round

A city boy and cooler about everything than all of us
until we took him hunting

When his first shot hit the rabbit
he ran and cried and held it till it died

At eighteen he quit school with A grades
a month before graduation to get a jump on a job
met a girl and bragged of achievement on first date

Over achievement it turned out to be
quick marriage, quick, two children, three

Army for security, liquor for the pain
it was twenty years before I saw him again

He was in a downstairs bar
sitting there as coarse and thick as adobe brick

I wanted to roll it all back
reach in for the lost fineness and yank it all inside out

And hold him like the rabbit when he cried
still innocent when it died

1 Reply

A Caution Against Too Much Church Too Soon

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Religion / April 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Brother Wally at age three or four
sitting on the tracks as the train approaches
wanting to find out what it’s like to be an angel

The last minute rescue
granting him some fame and slack
when he went back to being
the little devil he had been the day before

1 Reply

Little Church

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Childhood, Religion / April 8, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes, as far from everywhere as we were,
a visiting or student minister would make the
long trek and our one room school would
become a church for the day

It didn’t happen often
so the first time my three year old brother
sitting in the second row heard him say
“Jesus Christ”
he turned and said
“He swore mom, the minister swore”

“Shh” said my mother,
“He swore, he swore, he swore” said Wally
every effort to silence him only increasing his
insistence and volume

Most fun that most of us, except my mother,
ever had in church

2 Replies

War Wounds

Family / tagged Scars / March 30, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There are, the epigeneticists say
memories that haven't gone away

What happened to
your grandma when the troops came by
is still barbed-wire wrapped around your DNA

Dreams that aren't yours
neurons firing like the war's still on
and mines set off by a word or a touch

So please be gentle with one another
and your mother and your mother's mother

Pie

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Baking, Mother, Pi Day / March 14, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

1 Reply

The Farmer’s Daughter

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Children, Innocence / March 2, 2022 / 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

For the children of Ukraine: May their national flower smile on them again.

Losses

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Death, War / February 27, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Empty as a mouth full of snow - Lois P. Jones

We lost another calf
we lost another crop

We lost an uncle in the war

These are not like keys of city folk
that they find in their other coat

The things we lose out here
don’t come back any more

Thinking today of the people of Ukraine: The farmers and the city folk

1 Reply

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