Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Memory

In Grandpa’s Cellar

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Memory, Power, Scent / March 4, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Along the east wall a row
of large glass betteries
charged and recharged
by the windmill in the yard

Close by the many crocks
of the fruits of his garden
on their way to wine

I have been brought to halt
by a passing waft
of strong cheese and pipe tobacco

But never once or likely
the musky mix of ozone
and yeast at the bottom of those stairs

Sheets to the Wind

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Chores, Laundry, Memory, Scent, Winter / March 3, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Reminded by Marymae the other day

of Monday's wash in Tuesday's wind
and bending sheets to bring them in

It was just enough starch
and thirty degrees below in March

And about how fingers got cold as hell
but I think it was really about the smell

Yes that was the part she wanted to tell
it was really the freshness of that smell

War Wounds

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Epigenetics, Memory, PTSD, Trauma, War / November 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There are, the epigenticists say
memories that haven't gone away

What happened to
your grandma when the troops came by
is still barbed-wire wrapped around your DNA

Dreams that aren't yours
neurons firing like the war's still on
and mines set off by a word or a touch

So please be gentle with one another
and your mother and your mother's mother

1 Reply

How Is It That I Laugh

Audio Recordings, News, Relationships / tagged Celebration, Death, Friendship, Grief, Israel, Jerusalem, Memory, Palestine, War / October 18, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How is it that I laugh easier now
eve though so many
that I laughed with laugh no more
and at their memory can only smile

In Isreal on the Mount of Olives
we were included in a wedding party
where Muslims drank orange soda
men danced with men and laughed

So much of the world is far from fun
but that was yesterday and tomorrow
In the hotel of seven arches only joy

Hotel 7 Arches sits atop the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem

Your Face By Lightning

Audio Recordings / tagged Connections, Memory / August 1, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Candlelight is soft and lasting
if only as long as the wax

Lightning lit it lasts forever

Lilac Time

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry / tagged Experience, Flowers, Memory, Scent / June 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The nostrils of the young
though keen
receive but half a scent

How many years
til it be doubled by memory

As more words than one
are needed to make rhyme

1 Reply

Winter in the Barn

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Cats, Horses, Memory / January 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Steam rises off the backs of big horses

The old Holstein in the second stall
shifts her weight from side to side
matching the rhythm of the milking
and flicks her tail at memories
of summer flies

Across the width of the barn
I stand with mouth open
in my biggest five-year-old oval
catching most of the milk
squirted dead-eye straight
by the laughing hired man

In the tack room
kittens wait by a tin plate
to put their morning moustache on

In my memory it is always warm in the barn

An Archaeology of Memory

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Memory / November 25, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Old cowboy in the nursing home
eyes closed
hands moving slow
bunching up and smoothing out
hills lower and higher than the albums show

Gentle that slope for the prairie wool
steepen it a little for the winter sled
push up a mountain for a boy and his dog
lope a meadow for the tall-horsed teen

Back on the ranch again
excavating in the Plasticine

Memory Care

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia, Care, Love, Memory / November 24, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Will the memories I want to remember
last longer than those I'd like to forget

Will I still remember how to tie my shoes
when I've grown too stiff to reach them

Will you be there to remind me of you
will you kindly tie that shoe

For Paul and Linda Fite

1 Reply

Dia de los Muertos for Gringos

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Day of the Dead, Death, Memory / November 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Refused a feast
on but one day a year
they nibble at our
every hour

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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
Nancy Fierstien on Redwoods in the RainFebruary 27, 2025
Love, love, love, love, love this one Neil!

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