Ranch Life – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Ranch Life

Mittens

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life / tagged Community, Leaving Home, War / November 9, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Fingers in mittens
are family keeping
each other warm

The cold indifference of gloves
much like the city fold that wore them

Pilots in the war had
mittens with a trigger finger
to do what needed to be done

Somewhere we had got a pair
a hero sometimes has to leave home

Losses

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Death, Grief / November 8, 2025 / 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 folks
that they find in their other coat

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

Migration

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Birds / October 22, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Fall falling
we hosted great flocks
on their long way south

Blizzards of snow geese
and ducks and cranes a-clatter

Grain left behind the combine
topping their tanks with premium

We'll welcome them again in Spring
callings calmed to a Texas drawl

Photo Credit: James Meili

Bone Density

Audio Recordings, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / tagged Healing, Horses, Injury, Pain, Survival / October 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Tamped into tensile strength
by a clunk-hoofed pinto
through leg, saddle and spine
to a headache in a Stetson hat

Hardened by the semi
permafrost of prairie winter

Flexible as knowing
drought and rain and pain
that have come and gone
and might come back again

A Shadow of My Farmer Self

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / tagged Work / October 16, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The one
who got up with the summer sun
and toiled till the work was done
is done

The one
who would’ve slept the winter away
if it wasn’t for critters hungry ways
now versifies on his clock
with Seamus Heaney’s squat pen
resting between finger and thumb
instead of a three-tined pitchfork
raising blisters in the hot, hot sun

Credit: Seamus Heaney; DIGGING https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging

Trying to Imagine an Imaginary Friend

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood, imagination, Play / October 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(for the Marcil Brothers)

Never had one as a kid
which could be attributed to
a lack of imagination or space

I make up it was the latter
every house we had was plenty full of and we did make up stories after dark
and take the parts of local heroes
who drove big trucks and drove them fast

If any of the sibs had a pretend co-pilot
they never let on as they careened
full speed and filled the room with
kicked up gravel on their way to fame

Jeep

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering, Travel / October 9, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dad had a Willys Jeep
That took us to school for a while

In the wet it was wet, in the cold it was cold

Our baby teeth bounced from our jaws
And bruises covered every bum

We knew that it was built for war – it felt like war

Back-Door-Quick-Steps

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Bathroom, Humor, Latrine, Toilet / October 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The outhouse was
a hundred paces from the door
twice as long in winter

Language to describe the trip
as colourful as the orange wrappers
a seasonal break from catalogue pages

The pace of our trips
dependent on diet or minor disease
we even had some words for these
worthy enough to be a title of a poem

Image by Darya-Greengrey from Pixabay

Full Moon at Weaning Time

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / October 7, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cows, calves and coyotes
full throat under moon all night
Nobody sleeping at the ranch

Prompt credit: Wally Meili

Plain as Plains

Audio Recordings, Nature, Ranch Life / September 2, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The sun does not rise or set
midst peaks of mountain pageantry

nor crown like a baby's head
or drop like a gemstone into the sea

But dusk or dawn we sit
wearing what we're wearing
and quietly making the best of it

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Nancy Fierstien on Eyes of FriendsNovember 6, 2025
Lovin' this one, line after line!
Nancy Fierstien on Light on LeavesNovember 2, 2025
Yet another favorite of mine! How can I hold back this "THANK YOU!" ???
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!

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