Ranch Life – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Ranch Life

Jeanne-Marie Writes A New Book

Audio Recordings, Environment, Farm, Nature, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / tagged Prairie, Rain / November 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When it rains in Biggar Saskatchewan
a bigger battle begins
Grass and grain sucking straws
to the slurping point
The sun trying as always to extract
far more than its fair tithe
Muddy waters swirling down drains
of gopher and badger holes
Settling through hollows of buffalo wallows
where the buffalo no longer roam
Remainders feeding underground streams
and deep raging rivers

If I put my feet or ear to the ground
I can almost understand her last poem
Almost hear the next one

Biggar Saskatchewan’s town motto: New York is Big, but this is Biggar

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

Swathing

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Harvest, Nourishment, Pride, Satisfaction, Wheat, Work / November 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Turning for home at dusk
he takes a moment to look back in pride
at the last perfect swath among perfect swaths

Lines straight as Protestant prayer
overlapping and gold as Brunhilda's braids
floating on firm stubble cut at perfect length
to allow the prairie winds to blow above below
and dry the kernals in the holding heads
to Number 1 Northern, best wheat in the world

Tonight once more he'll fall asleep
counting loaves of bread instead of sheep

Dark Skies

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Contemplation, Milky Way, Stars / October 16, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

He
turns off the TV
and goes outside to count
bullet holes in the sky

Rising moon is a lime in a Corona

New-cut hay is youth
and him lying on his back
traveling the milk-paved path

He lays back on the hay

Feels of the Farm – Flax

Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Grain, Senses, sensuality / October 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You can't walk on flax in a bin
quick as quicksand it pulls you in

But run your hand through it
back and forth on edge or cupped

Smooth as purple flower petals
and as cool as spring all summer

Too young to yet compare
it to the inside of a woman's thigh

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Royalty

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Prairie, Rich Life, Wealth / October 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Wheat of gold
covered the hills

There were purple robes of flax
and castles
aplenty in the clouds

The kind and queen kept our lineage from us
but we only had
to look around to know

How the Tractor Engine

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Harvest, Wheat / October 13, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How the tractor engine sings
in a different key when the sun goes down

Like the stooking gets a little easier
when you've had a few pulls on the water bag

Things you wouldn't notice driving by
fast enough to see us still-life in the field

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

Canada Geese

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Autumn, Guns, Harvest, Hunting / October 11, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The veeing geese fly freer now
across the autumn sky

No longer do they gorge
on my father's golden grain

No longer do I lie in wait
twelve gauge at the ready
to bring them in for dinner

Blind

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Autumn, Birds, Fall, Hunting, Migration / October 10, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Lying on our backs in shallow graves
we've dug in pre-dawn frozen dirt

Golden straw pulled over us
to not be seen by Canada's geese
stopping for breakfast going to Texas

Waiting less time than it seems
to hear the honking and leap up
to exact our tithes on the grain
we and the gods all year provided

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Ken Christopher on War WoundsNovember 12, 2024
So true, the barbed wire 👍🏼
Niece Karen on Quaking in the AtticOctober 23, 2024
Perfect metaphor - you captured me perfectly!
Ken Christopher on God is Getting OnOctober 22, 2024
Anger contained in love
Murray on Feels of the Farm – FlaxOctober 15, 2024
Now that's vintage knowledge Neil!!!! Hope you're feeling much better. Your poem would suggest you are!!
Ken Christopher on Fowl SupperSeptember 22, 2024
Wonderful poem Neil

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