Cows – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cows

Roundup

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Branding, Work / July 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It's about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get

The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick fro a good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face out where the boys with the hot irons can record the feat

Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above and through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys where a slip was made or a kick well placed

At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment

Completely released from the wheel of desire
There's no place you'd rather be
There's no one you'd rather be with
and you're too damned tired to move anyway

Cowboys Will Be Boys

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / April 30, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How funny is it
to be kicked by a cow
(at least compared to a horse)

Depends a lot
if it happens to you
or to your tightest friend

(By tight I mean
both close and liquored up)

Just one of those jokes
that girls don’t seem to get
not even in the calving pen

At least I’ve never seen
them doing their damndest
to get the one with broken ribs
to laugh so they can see them cry

1 Reply

The Innocence of Snow

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, News, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / January 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Winter
was winter
and all the world

When the only light was lamp
and the only power God
and the innocence of snow
lay soft on lad and land

When floating breath of kin and kine
was pure and white as well
and mankind too as far as we could tell

Antennae daily now
break down that door with news of war

Winter on the ranch
Kin = Family & Kine = Cattle

Only One Boss in the Corral

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / November 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you're in the corral at roundup time
you better be ready to think or listen fast

When half a ton of fear-blind beef
has a horn lined up with your ass
and the boss says jump you jump

Democracy is a thing of beauty
but there’s a time and a place for that

For Mary Who Loves Horses

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Boundries / November 22, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I have ridden the fence line
without believing in fences

I have been one with the movement of horse
the strength and speed of horse
the grace of horse and the soul of horse

I have been one with the wind
and the high rolling hills
and the sky

I have stepped down
with my hands filled with staples and pliers

For the welfare of cattle and neighbours
who still have need of believing
in fences

Herding Poems

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / November 19, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Herding Poems
(for Patricia)

My father had sons
to help him herd the cows

I have a daughter
to help me herd the poems

He had ten thousand acres
we have all the acres of the world

His won ribbons at the feeder show
ours, when entered, won some prizes too

He would stand for hours
to watch them feeding and grown fat

I sometimes get out a book and do just that

All They Survey

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Appreciation, Pride / November 18, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father
would stand for hours
just looking at his cows

Like God leaning
on a rail fence in heaven
pleased with his creation

Too Crowded

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Migration / November 6, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My folks took some time off in the sixties from their Saskatchewan ranching and traveled down through South Texas
One day they stopped to talk to an old cowboy sittin and a wittlin on a rickety ranch porch
When he found out where they were from he said "Say - do you know a man up there by the name of Bill Prior?"
They said "Yes - he's an old bachelor who lives up past our north pasture, ,why do you ask?"
"Well" he said, "about 1928 Bill and I are out lookin for some strays when we see another rider coming over the furthest hill"

Bill says to me "It's getting too damn crowded down here, I'm heading for Canada"
"He turned his horse North and I haven't seen him since"

2 Replies

I Never Saw My Mother on Horseback

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / November 5, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I understand that
she used to ride to school
but she was little and it was a farm
and somehow that didn't seem to count

When she was about 75 she told me about going with Dad to the far end of the ranch on a beautiful day a long time ago to help round up some strays

She said that she liked it a lot
and couldn't remember why she didn't do it more

The Question

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / November 3, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There's Dad sitting
by the after branding fire
with some after branding beers

And we get to talking
heart to heart
of trails together and apart

And of the things we saw
which ones brought us awe

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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
Anonymous on Cowboys Will Be BoysMarch 6, 2025
I love this poem make more like it

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