Ranch Life – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Ranch Life

The Useless Lake

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Birds / August 8, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

At the edge of our ranch
lay a large and useless lake

True, it was pretty enough
when the sun struck it just right

And the alkali
didn’t seem to be a problem
for the seeming millions
of cormorants, gulls and pelicans
who embraced it for their home

There were even men
living along the south shore
who may have been happy
mining its salt for money

What I meant was
it was water
that the cows couldn’t drink

1 Reply

What Turns Up

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Birds / August 7, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the long field by the lake
turning the earth is turning up worms

Looking over your shoulder
you'd swear you were birthing gulls

1 Reply

The Story of Storks

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Birds, Birth / August 6, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The story of storks bringing babies
was a hard sell on the ranch

Along with watching others arrive in other ways
the storybook pictures of tile roofs and tall chimneys
didn't look anything much like Saskatchewan

And why such an improbable bird
carrying little nipper in a knotted cotton nappie
(although some foresight might be granted there)

When readily available about a mile away
was a lake full of pelicans better suited to the task

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

Old Ranch Physics

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood, Play, Science / August 4, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Centrifugal force
is a gopher circling
on a binder twine noose

A cinch breaking
on a quarter-horse turning
and how far from the horse you fall

A quarter spinning
in the big bread-mixing bowl
and the up and down whoosh of the whine

The Cellar

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Basement, memories / August 3, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Rough as a cave
floor of hard-packed dirt
and eastern wall at a wicked slant
where the forming gave as cement was poured

Root cellar and walls of jars
The sisters remember lizards
not being afraid of lizards I don’t

Giant rumbling one-vent furnace
that sent our survival heat straight up
to find its way through leaky house any way it could

Children on a ranch can find anywhere to play
- Not there

Memories of Three or Four

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / August 2, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember being nestled ='
in that old ranch kitchen
deep in the warmth of washday Monday

The Maytag's liquid sounds mixing
with the gentle driving chugs
of the little gas engine

Sloshing and chugging sloshing and chugging
as I curled up beside it
in the great pile of laundry
rich with the smells of the people I loved

Half asleep half awake I floated there
all my senses safely cradled and warmed
and part of a rhythm and a sound
like a heartbeat in a womb

1 Reply

The Girls Had an Edge

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life / tagged Communication, Connection / July 20, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Me and my brothers
had tractors and trucks and such
you can't talk to tractors and trucks

Sisters with in strollers
had friends always happy
to see the world through their eyes

Lifebuoy

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood / July 18, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I have never learned to swear very well
which just goes to show that training will tell

That there is much to be said for good homes
and payoffs for stern discipline and hope

It's not that I don't know the words
but they all still taste like soap

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

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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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