Nostalgia – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Nostalgia

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

Threshing Time

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Harvest, Wheat / October 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember at Christmas getting a great threshing machine
a block of wood with wooden spools nailed to the side
but I loved it as I loved the threshing

All through the long summer days I would walk
the fields with my dog
At night my mother rubbed strong liniment on four year old
legs: growing pains she said, although one always hurt
more and didn’t seem to grow any faster

And the grain grew too, and passed me, and was higher
than I was. And then the harvest and the wonder of it falling
to the binder and the magic of the machine as it tied the
sheaves and ke-chunked them into the carrier

Then the stooking – little teepees covering the prairie again
and the golden warmth of everything

And the threshing machine; they wouldn’t let me too close;
it might eat me like it ate those sheaves and like the men
in the crew could eat, and they could eat
even when it rained

While I sat for hours nose to wet window
watching the great gray dinosaur
deep in the timeless mists

And hot clear windless days when everything sang and
the big belt slapped and the machine came to life again
and wagons were on both sides
and the big horses were standing strong and ready
and switching flies with dignity

The sun caught the arch or the long plume of straw and
the chaff lifting and the old hands fed the machine in a
sort of easy sweat-oiled rhyme and the new hands stood
on the sheaves they tried to lift each time

And the old hands laughed, and the new hands laughed
and they were men together

Deer Valley Airport

Audio Recordings, Flight, Nostalgia / tagged Airplanes, Aviation, Friendship, Pilots / August 19, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The man who flies an airplane... must believe in the unseen - Richard Bach

In the northern environs of Phoenix
the air is dry enough for old airplanes
and The Red Baron bar wet enough for dry pilots

Along the double row of yellow hangers
A Mark X1V Spitfire, a 1930’s Great Lakes
a Ryan pt 22 Eisenhower supposedly soloed in
and Jim Higgins’ WW1 reproduction SE-5a biplane

Whether you are hangering a Cessna or a T-33
you are part of a private club with no paperwork or fees
and get to sip champagne with Blue Angels after the show

In honor of National Aviation Day and all the author’s friends in the sky

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

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Gail on In-TuitionJanuary 2, 2025
Love it! “The cost of this is only in the not.”
Ken Christopher on Missing the MysteryDecember 30, 2024
Yes, the Mystery is what keeps it exciting
Ken Christopher on Christmas CardsDecember 29, 2024
Yep, the sleigh got us to town on train day and me to school every day, the poem is a…
Anonymous on Why Children Are ChristmasDecember 23, 2024
So simple, so captivating! Nice Neil to give me the feel :) Murray A
Ken Christopher on John DeereDecember 21, 2024
Love it❤️

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