Ranch Life – Page 5 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Ranch Life

Energy on the Ranch

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / June 9, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When Red Bull
was a Hereford not a drink

They could
still get you moving fast
when they pawed the ground

Painting the Prairie

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Art / June 8, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No abstract art
in the Old Farmers Home

Survival needs order
Home Sweet Home
painfully into a sampler stitched

Only the storms
got to color outside of the lines
someone had to rope the house to the barn

Time-Lapse Prairie

Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Perspective / June 7, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Clouds
chase shadows
across the hide of hills

Blues
of light and dark
mix in palate ponds

Two antelope
enger from the left and gone

Dusk

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Humor, UFOs / June 6, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

One light comes on in the sky
one lamp on the prairie - James Wright

Lined up at the north end of the south field
hard machines made for tearing the earth
relax into softness

The newlyweds in the hired man's house
are getting a little shy again

While
just over the horizon which is becoming not one
teenagers from Mars in their little round cars
ponder a perfect night to spin a crop circle or two

Crop Insurance

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Hope, Humor / June 5, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Young farmer at the country dance
feeling there was nothing left to live for
with his whole crop flat-threshed by hail

Until the prettiest girl in the hall
took him outside to show it wasn't necessarily so

Next morning's pews were filled to full
with farmers praying for their crops to fail

Blue Spruce

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Birds, Childhood, Play / May 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It may have been about thirty feet tall
taller when you're small

And on the very top would sit
the great horned owl

If the anti-Christ were to have
and anti-Christmas tree
he could have capped it
as the perfect dark angel

We cowered by the corner of the house
our very blood frozen
prey to his predator eyes

Yet when he flew away
we could snap - as only children can - from fear to play
run to divide the branches
and return once more to the soft-needled floor

One little two little three little Indians in our magic tepee in a land of long ago
and not so far away

With thanks to Al Westnedge for the stunning photograph of the Great Horned Owl.

When Gum Was Wheat

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / May 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Before gum was in a store
with baseball cards and sugar

you could play hide and seek in wheat
and chew the half-ripe kernals half a day

Nothing to spend, nothing to pay
If you had a sister or a brother you had play

Speechless on the Prairie

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood, Clouds / May 13, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Speechless the snowy tissue of clouds passed over, and more came, and speechless they passed also - Mary Oliver

There must have been a time before words that was not before clouds

Maybe laying on my back in a wicker basket buggy
mother fussing over something in the garden

They didn't attach mobiles to buggies in those days
they didn't have to, the clouds never standing still

How Did Mother Smell

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering / May 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Not counting the colostrum-rich milk
which I will never forget or rememer
clean is the word that comes to mind

Clean with dustpan or diaper in hand
clean at church or clean in a ditch
the woman was clean from head to soul

A Prairie Villanelle

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Travel / April 19, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If prairie wheels again had I
I'd chew the gravel and the air
with prairie roads to fly

I'd plume the earth into the sky
to show them I was there
if prairie wheels again had I

Past places where dead neighbours lie
I'd not linger, who would dare
with prairie roads to fly

Dust to dust gets in your eye
I'd look for other things to share
if prairie wheels again had I

Then greener farmyards I'd pass by
in mem-mirages free of care
with prairie roads to fly

I'd roll past all that makes you cry
afloat in susnsets clear and fair
if prairie wheels again had I
with prairie roads to fly

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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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