Farm – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Farm

Half Past May and Counting

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Faith, Spring / May 24, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This many years from farming
I still feel the urge to be afield
a plowing and a planting

A plowing and a planting
and a praying for some rain
and a praying for some rain

Not that this constant goading
should be seen as lack of trust

But knowing he is also old
and sometimes needs reminding

The Faith of a Mustard Field

Audio Recordings, Farm / tagged Faith / May 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; Matthew 17:20
In the holy land of Saskatchewan
with the faith that’s needed to be a farmer

And wanting a level place to grow his crop
he moved all the mountains to Alberta

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

The Busman’s Holiday

Audio Recordings, Farm, Flight, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Writing / May 5, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I think I’ve done it now
run out of places to hide
painted myself into a corner
surrounded on every side

For like every pilot
that ever learned to fly
I’ve got to help the captain
when I’m in the sky

And the time I’ve spent a thumbing
and a hauling heavy loads
links me with the Gypsies
that I meet along the roads

And if I look from side to side
at the land along the way
why the farmer and the rancher in me
wants to have its say

And if I should stop to rest
at an inn along the way
the years I’ve spent in
running one
with constant detail mars
my stay

If that wasn’t bad enough
now I’ve started out to write
and every shadow, thought,
or urge that comes to me
both day and night

has a message and a pull
to my soul and to my pen
so that I may never be
alone - or at rest again

Neighborly

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Travel / May 3, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On gravel roads
there are three tracks not four

Nobody gets to pass anybody
without noticing they're there

Courtesy and survival still
well entwined out where folks are few

Old Mower in a Texas Field

Audio Recordings, Farm / April 29, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The old mower rests its rusty rest
cutting bar raised in surrender and salute

Timid bluebonnets grow nearer each year
with nothing now to fear

1 Reply

What Grows on the Farm

Audio Recordings, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / April 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

That one could
live here all their lives
and know nothing, or know everything

That one could
leave here and come back
and see everything, or see nothing

And after the harvest would it all be the same

How I Lost My Faith – In Preachers

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life / April 10, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It was a cold and muddy Sunday
Our little caravan of Christians
children, parents and student minister
stuck in the spring mud a mile from church

Me and city cousin Wayne
the chosen ones at age seven
chosen to walk
to the nearest neighbour
while the others wait in the cars

The neighbour's not home but his Cocksuhtt 40 tractor is

Some combination of farm boy bravado
and reluctance to slog
back to the cars in defeat
comes out as "I can drive a tractor!"

One foot each on the clutch and a good deal of grinding
gets us into low gear
and off at about two miles per

The student mi sister meats us
two thirds of the way back

As our leader
in all things spiritual and practical
he decrees that we are going far too slow
and selects another gear
(probably at random, he's from the city too)

The one he picks is the fastest
known in these parts as "Road Gear"
and we quickly accelerate to thirty

which causes the preacher to panic
(or remember that he forgot his bible)
and leap off

leaving us to wrestle the big red monster
now wildly careening from rut to rut
and rocketing toward the mired cars
and fearful families

Wrenching the wheel to the right
at the last possible moment
we narrowly avoid death and destruction
and stall to a stop in the water-filled ditch
amidst the prayers of the congregation

Gopher Tails

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / April 7, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I was seven
gopher tails were three cents

The county had a bounty to arrest the little pest
not exactly a price on their heads
but you get the picture

So we hauled buckets of water
to drown them out
learned from the bigger boys
how to tie a noose in binder twine
placed it around the hole
and waited

Curiosity, which has been known to kill cats
is not very good for gophers either

Once caught
they were run in mad races
spun to centrifugal asphyxiation
or finished off in other cruel ways
before yielding us our hard earned bounty

In the spring we watched their return
to the snow speckled pasture
running tumbling wrestling
making love

And the wonderful babies
when they first ventured out
to try sunshine grass and shaky legs

It amazes me now
that as boys

We could take such joy
in their playful
beauty

And in their deaths

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