Family – Page 5 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Family

I Never Saw My Mother on Horseback

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / June 23, 2024 / 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

Oh So Simple Then

Audio Recordings, Family, Haiku, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Play / June 18, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Oh so simple then
though the children grew older
their games never did

Author’s mother with her siblings circa 1925

Ethics Back Then

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Education / June 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Work ethic was the job
of the father to model and teach

All other ethics
and heaven's rewards
were mother's to model and preach

Round Tables

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Communication, Father / June 16, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

He loved his neighbours, but not out loud
(Only by default could we tell if he was proud men did not hug their friends or children then)

There were no women in the bar
and all the tables round and small
heavy with ashtray and pilsner draft
where they talked code til closing time

Politics of any stripe meant you are my brother
The weather, whatever the weather meant I love you too

Aunt Eileen

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Death, Grief / May 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The death of my aunt
came when I had been at the sea
and my pores were open

She entered quickly

Dragging shadows of other deaths
aunts, uncles, father, friends

All loud with the clanking
of the chains that still bind

Blue Spruce

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Birds, Childhood, Play / May 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It may have been about thirty feet tall
taller when you're small

And on the very top would sit
the great horned owl

If the anti-Christ were to have
and anti-Christmas tree
he could have capped it
as the perfect dark angel

We cowered by the corner of the house
our very blood frozen
prey to his predator eyes

Yet when he flew away
we could snap - as only children can - from fear to play
run to divide the branches
and return once more to the soft-needled floor

One little two little three little Indians in our magic tepee in a land of long ago
and not so far away

With thanks to Al Westnedge for the stunning photograph of the Great Horned Owl.

When Gum Was Wheat

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / May 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Before gum was in a store
with baseball cards and sugar

you could play hide and seek in wheat
and chew the half-ripe kernals half a day

Nothing to spend, nothing to pay
If you had a sister or a brother you had play

How Did Mother Smell

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / May 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Not counting the colostrum-rich milk
which I will never forget or rememer
clean is the word that comes to mind

Clean with dustpan or diaper in hand
clean at church or clean in a ditch
the woman was clean from head to soul

Questions for the Next Séance

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Communication, Curiosity, Death, Heaven, Regrets / May 11, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dearest Mother;

Sorry to disturb you
in your well deserved bliss,
but here’s a short list
of things that I forgot to ask

And if it isn’t too much trouble
I’d like the answers as detailed as possible

It will be understandable
if you can’t conjure up a voice,
but one rap for yes, and two for no,
on a floating table won’t quite do

However, if you can look up Samuel Morse,
(who may well be bored and available),
he can give you a quick-study course
and I will dust off my old Boy Scout manual

I believe “talk to me” In Morse still becomes:

-/•-/•-••/-•- /— – – –/––•

So, now that we’ve got the hang of it;

– What was the best day of your life
– What was your worst
– Your greatest triumph
– Your greatest disappointment
– What you are happiest that you did
– Saddest that you didn’t

Why exactly did my uncle shoot my dog
Whatever happened to my baseball card collection, with the rookie Mickey Mantle

and what is heaven like

Out of the Nest

Audio Recordings, Family, Travel / March 26, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(for Carolyn going away to college)

You have the soul of a bird
it's so joyful, light and fair
and now it's flying to a world
that the frightened people share

And I pray you safe
when they see you there
drawing water from mirages
for the flowers
round your castles in the air

Carolyn is the caterwaller refered to in yesterday’s poem “A Hymn to Them That Write and Sing Em”

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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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