Cattle – Page 5 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cattle

Little Brown Jug

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Music / June 6, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father had three sons
and taught them all
how to tie a grain sack, how to cut a calf
how to talk to a horse you walked up behind
so you wouldn't get kicked or killed
Good things to know
but none of us is working cattle now
He played a mean harmonica
would that he would have taught us that

One of author’s father’s favorite tunes. Here done by Glenn Miller

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

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

The Magic of Moose Jaw

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / February 20, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Who could sleep the night before
going to town in the truck with dad

Him and me in the front
white faced cows in the back
mooing it clear they wanted to stay
as much as I wanted to go

There would be the stockyards
and buildings bigger than a barn
and lunch at the Harwood Hotel
veal cutlets for him, burger for me

Two men together, five and thirty five
one driving home in the afternoon sun
one curled up on the seat

What Statues Stand For

Audio Recordings, Cattle / December 10, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Lot's wife
turned to a pillar of salt
A cautionary tale
for those who deal in such
An idol for the animals
to worship with their tongues

Henry Moore

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Art, sculpture / December 8, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Henry Moore was a smart old cowboy
a smart old cowboy was he

Just as sly as a fox
be bought twenty-foot salt blocks
and set them out in West Texas in winter

Where a thousand strong tongues
changed those basic hard foods
into a bunch of reclining nudes

There are times when it bothers
my conscience to see
them hangin’ around London,
New York, and D.C.

Then I remember old Hank is one of the boys
just suckerin’ some dudes with these toys

So I decide not to chip off the bronze

Winner at the Great Salt Lick Contest, Baker City Oregon
https://whitdeschner.com/salt-lick-gallery/

1 Reply

Dreams of My Father

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Illness, Stroke / December 7, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Six weeks you lay in a coma
what dreams you had
I never asked, you never said

The telling of dreams
was not a morning ritual in our home

If in grade two
I had been asked of yours
I'd most likely have said
More cows and a better horse

Cowversations

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / December 5, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

One of the reasons I got out of ranching
was the long drought of good conversation

Cowhands
true to their fame are men of few words

Horses ain’t bad
they will at least point their ears and pretend

But cows, it was the cows that did it
how they’d saucer eye like listening
while you chewed them out in detail
about all the dumb things that they’d done

Turn away to ruminate upon the lesson
and two days later kick you for no reason

Cows in the Rain

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows / tagged Meditation / December 3, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cows in the rain
standing still as time

Red coats black
and black coats blacker

Calm as a statue of the Buddha
who will not break a mudra to wipe a dripping brow

Practice

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / tagged Spirituality / September 3, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

for Aikido master Larry Novick and my father

All the Gurus of the East
teach their pupils that it’s best
to start each and every day
with a special way to pray

Meditation or breath they say
will set and keep you on the path

All the farmer fathers of the West
teach their pupils the same way

Chores it is and forking hay
and hay that used to be hay
and calmness ping and rhythm
in the milking of the sacred cow

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Ken Christopher on Minutia in MarchApril 1, 2025
21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem
Ken Christopher on Father’s PoemMarch 29, 2025
Lovely‼️
Ken on MossbankMarch 23, 2025
Beautiful, that could go on a t-shirt
Nancy Fierstien on TroubledMarch 18, 2025
Keep writing, Neil. Keep writing and writing and writing…because you have so much tucked inside that is worth saying to…
Ken Christopher on Negative Space in New York CityMarch 17, 2025
Prairie boy in NYC

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