Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Aging

Poems and stories about growing older,aging, deteriorating

Elders Then and Now

Audio Recordings / tagged Aging, Mentors, Wisdom / July 14, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The elders were not the hunters who could run a deer to the ground

The elders were the ones that knew where the deer could be found

The elders today may not be the ones to chase down all the web world knows

But of great value yet in what it means

For Victor

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Aging, Dogs, Friendship, Loss / July 13, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The only trick an old dog can learn is how to be an old dog
The minimum of turns one has to take before lying down for that nap
That a bark is as good as a chance for keeping squirrels off the deck
And that after all these years of standing by your standing friends you've likely earned their kneeling by you now.

Sharon’s dog and the author’s pal. Also greatly missed.

A Leaf in a Million

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Aging, Seasons / July 4, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Could I adopt a leaf in bud and cheer its birth
would be all I'd need to know of spring
Follow its green shade from dawn to dusk
all I'd need to know of summer
Marvel at the colours of its fruited wisdom
all I'd need to know of fall
And when it falls, as all must fall
act the un-grim raker

Quick Exit

Audio Recordings / tagged Aging, Death / June 28, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Quick Exit
(for Copper and Sharon)

You do not have to sink
into the earth
an inch of pain at a time

Though the shock be more
for those who grieve
a little envy may enter too

Shooting Star over Texas Hill Country – painting by Copper Love

Dad and Roy

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Aging, Friendship / June 16, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dad and Roy were the best of friends they drank and fought andplayed and laughed like nobody laughed for fifty years and more
Dad had a room in the nursing home
way down at the end of the hall
When Roy was admitted as well a nurse wheeled him down that hall
They sat footrest to footrest a minute then Roy said "So it's come to this" and they both had a hell of a laugh
Dad died in December Roy lasted three months more
They are buries twenty feet apart in the prairie town where they played
I can see them now sitting on their shiny new stones
having a smoke and a chew and a good pull on a forty of rye
Roy says "So it's come to this" and they both have a hell of a laugh

1 Reply

Bridges and Other Kindling

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Relationships / tagged Aging / March 20, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You can’t sit in front
of the same campfire twice
as much as you think of how nice

You can’t be as young
as you were when you clinked
those glasses in front of the hearth

But just think if you hadn’t
what would keep you warm in the storm

1 Reply

Two Pictures of Hawaii

Audio Recordings, Remembering, Travel / tagged Aging / March 3, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On the east side of Oahu
when the sun comes up just right
you can see the mountains of Molokai and Maui

In picture number one
I am standing in the foreground
trim and twenties, trying to look like I belong

In picture number two
I am the camera, and the picture ages with me — If you look very closely at the faded picture you may see Maui – just visible on the horizon above the boat, and Molokai above the word one, to its left

Alice’s Father

Audio Recordings, Family, Poems about Poetry / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia / January 27, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Farther and farther he sank
below the surface of dementia
And yet like a salmon
in his homeland of Scotland
he would rise to the words of a favourite poem
Grab the hook and leap
the length of the line

January is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, and Alice Major one of Canada’s finest poets

The Tattoos of Dorian Gray

Audio Recordings / tagged Aging, Secrets, Vulnerability / September 15, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Long sleeved and high necked shirts
could protect him from the crowd

But when he bathed the truth came out
in wrinkled cupids, moms and babes

Inspired by the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Image by Photorama from Pixabay

Hoodoos I Have Known and Loved

Audio Recordings / tagged Aging, Death, Wisdom / September 2, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Even and after
the soft stone below the hard
gets worn away by water and wind

A hoodoo can stand
for an almost, but never, forever

Until
one day
the body fails
and the great head falls
carrying its wisdom into the canyon

Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay

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