Remembering – Page 2 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Remembering

Rolling On

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Remembering / tagged Aging, Death, Movement / August 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Buggy wheels
and training wheels
cars, trucks and bikes

Walkers
and wheelchairs
powered and push
until the wheels come off

Mother’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Care, Love / August 5, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The kitchen has always been the center 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 neighbour's homes rising and shimmering like memories of her youth

Seasons spiral out and in from this center
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 stooked field

The shortening of days into winter
and the ever present stars
joined by the dance of northern lights

Within each season she has watched the play of seasons of each day
men returning from roundup
children from their play

While she waits always at the center
to warm and love

and safely tuck away

Mom and brother Wally in the ranch kitchen 1952

For Joe

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Connections, Death, Stories / July 24, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We are still a world of stories,
symbols, dreams and music in the night - Anonymous

For Joe
who never met a listener he didn't like

For Joe
who has gone today
from teller to subject of many stories

Though no one will tell them half so well

Family reunion wrapped up. Missing Joe telling fish stories in heaven

A Funny Story

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Humor / July 21, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the dream I say to brother Wally

You're going to have to tell the story
of the milk I drank way back then
is going to come out my nose again

Little Church

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Humor, Religion / July 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes, as far from everywhere as we were,
a visiting or student minister would make the long trek and our one room school would become a church for the day

It didn't happen often
so the first time my three year old brother sitting in the second row heard him say
"Jesus Christ"
he turned and said
"He swore Mom, the minister swore"
"Shh" said my mother
"He swore, he swore, he swore" said Wally
every effort to silence him only increasing his insistence and volume

Most fun that most of us, except my mother, ever had in church

Grandpa’s Upstairs Porch

Audio Recordings, Environment, Family, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Siblings, Storms / June 26, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The only scenery was sky
the only light was lightning

Five of us sibled summer nights
blanketed against the cooling air

Watching storms from forever away
til they rained us to our beds

Still Life with Squirming Baby

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Children, Personality, photography / June 25, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Looking through pictures
for a family reunion
Here’s one from a hundred
years ago or more

Grandma Meili
dignity & beauty
shining through
Four around her skirts
and baby in arms
all of them readying
for their roles in my movie

Teacher (In Defence of Schoolboy Crushes)

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Education / June 21, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

She was my teacher in grade four
I fell in love for evermore

Not a love I could express
though with schoolwork might impress

And so I spent my nights and days
in search of learning and of praise

A flower opening to the light
in aching anguish and delight

Then she went and moved away
It seemed life ended on that day

Though looking back on that great year
not dimmed by time but made more clear

I see that ancient youthful yearning
remains of love of love and learning

What You Missed by Not Going to a One Room School

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / June 20, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Your dad's initials
jackknifed deep in a desk now yours

The worst teacher in the world
all day every long day for three years
The best teacher in the world
all day every short day for the next one

Watching other kids get the strap
being watched by them when you got it
Beating the big kids in the spelling bee
taking a beating at recess for your trouble

Melting crayons on the tin protector
three feet from the coal stove burn
Home-grown tomatoes sagging
through home-baked bread

Clapping blackboard brushes
upwind of the cough-filled cloud
Green Dust-Bane and a barn broom
pushed across an oiled wood floor

All your enemies, all your friends
no more than twenty feet away

Aunty High Over

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Education, Fun, Games / June 19, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You need a ball is all

and a schoolhouse
small enough to throw it over

There is the calling out
and then the throwing over
and the catching and the tagging
and the laughing, always the laughing

There were rules, you could look them up
they were too small a part to mention here

The one room schoolhouse north of Courval, Saskatchewan
attended by the author’s father and the author as well

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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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