Nostalgia – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Nostalgia

A Long Way From Town

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Sky, Solitude, Stars / February 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This summer
I hope to get back to the farm

turn out the yard lights
in the dark of the moon
and look up in four-year-old awe

with a smile
the Milky Way will remember

Barn – Sunshine – Thoughts

Audio Recordings, Cows, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / February 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The mote and the beam
are both in my eye

Witness to sunlight's break and enter
through errors in dry boards

I have sneezed
and changed a world

Ancestry . Barn

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Art & Artists, Horses, Poetry & Storytelling / February 7, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Every poet of
childhood on a farm
will keep coming back

Every dust mote from the
straw and hay filled with DNA
and stories they are charged to tell

Red walls and black roof
and click of cow and clydesdale hoof
and every caution that their father taught
no amount of city money could have bought

Hail and drought can wipe crops out
but not barn memories whispering for a shout

1 Reply

Tabula Rasa on the Ranch

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Dogs, Solitude / February 6, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Bee thinking about
what I might have been thinking about
on those long walks, just me and the dog
and coming to the conclusion - nothing much

The dog had her nose to follow
and she older and wiser than my four or five
more likely I just followed where it took her

A covey of partridge might explode in our face
a killdeer fake hurt to mislead us from her nest
or gophers barely beat us in a race to their hole

Even though I don't remember what there was
the secret of the joy might have been what wasn't
and what there wasn't in all those acres was people

With people you had to use your wits and words
and about a hundred million ways to get it wrong

Just me and the dog it was nothing but song

Missing the Mystery

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Personal Growth / tagged Buddhism, Christianity, Comfort, Faith, Tradition / December 29, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A Protestant at Catholic school
I loved the music of the Mass
and all that ancient Latin singing
and sweet smoke of censer swinging

Our family's King James Bible
remembered that the Psalms were songs
We didn't go to church for news
and there were hymns that rocked the pews

At Esalen om mani padme hum
a praising of the jewel in the lotus
and the striking of Tibetan bowl
did more than math to soothe the soul

The rational mind likes login
but you don't have to take it to church

1 Reply

How Many Pins on the Head of an Angel

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Christmas, Connection / December 26, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Twenty after midnight and up alone
sharing every Christmas past
with the angel of Austin present
alight on the well lit tree

Telling her of the first thin pine
strung with popcorn and candles clipped
back on the ranch before the power

Every crackle of every log
every crinkle of tissue torn
every child's first Christmas
and every parent's last
and every cousin and uncle and aunt
no longer as they say extant

Praying her to spread
her wings and wonder wide
that we may gather them all by dawn

Christmas Cards

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Christmas, Holiday, Traditions / December 25, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Back when mail was mail
and jam came in a pail
(with strawberries big as your thumb)
the thing I most remember
are the envelopes of December

It didn't surprise us
that Santa came by sleigh
anybody to get to our ranch
would have had to come by sleigh

so they came by card instead
and helped us light each clip-on candle
around the popcorned tree

1 Reply

Tastes of Childhood

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Christmas, Experience, imagination, Literature, Traditions / December 24, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I was two or three
and my mother read to me

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole
I fell down the rabbit hole
tumbling over and over in the air
the memory is still there

Ribbon candy and real candles on the tree

Christmas chocolates made at home
from a factory recipe someone
slipped to someone on a train

Taste buds still budding
tasting with my whole body

Slowly I've forgotten how
only love and fear can do it now

Singing in Showers and Cars

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Joy, Music / December 6, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Kenny had a booming voice
and could carry a tune
and anyone who couldn't

Singing in the shower
you only have yourself and water
and the echoes of the walls

The cubic space in an old pickup cab
is about the same as a shower stall

Sometimes we sang
with the windows open
and gravel heavy on the bass
Sometimes it was raining
as we synced along
singing every Johnny Horton song

in the best studio in the world
in the best of all worlds

Wheat

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Bread, Communion, Grain, Harvest, Nourishment, Prairie / November 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

What perfect voice will sing the truths of wheat?
- Frederico Lorca

Wheat half-ripe for chewing gum

Wheat for rolling waves in wind
Wheat for loaves and fishes giving

Wheat for shovelling wheat all day
and eating earned fresh from oven

Wheat for Jesus body sharing
and your bretheren in the pews

Wheat for only rain is news

Image by minka2507 from Pixabay

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Ken Christopher on Buddy TrainingFebruary 19, 2025
Yep, tough love
Kimberly Heinrich on Dog YearsFebruary 18, 2025
You could not possibly have known that today was the day that I had to have my beloved dog euthanized.…
Barbara Joy Bruce on FebruaryFebruary 13, 2025
love it! Thanks, Neil!
Ken Christopher on Ancestry . BarnFebruary 7, 2025
You bet; nice one Neil
Barb on Her Mother Sings to VioletsFebruary 2, 2025
💜💓💜

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