Ranch Life – Page 8 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

Category: Ranch Life

For Mary Who Loves Horses

Audio Recordings, Cows, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life, Relationships / December 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I have ridden the fence line
without believing in fences

I have been one with the movement of horse
the strength and speed of horse
the grace of horse and the soul of horse

I have been one with the wind
and the high rolling hills
and the sky

I have stepped down
with my hands filled with staples and pliers

For the welfare of cattle and neighbours
who still have need of believing in fences

My Uncle Shot My Dog

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Death, Dogs, Forgiveness, Loyalty / December 1, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My uncle shot my dog

My ever loving ever loyal saved me from the coyotes
Went back to the ranch to lead my parents to me
stuck in the mud - just like in the movies - Lassie dog

My uncle shot my dog

Maybe she had took to bitin’ people
if she did I’m sure they had it coming

Maybe she’d got to eatin’ the chickens
if she did she’d earned every one

Maybe she was old and sick and hurtin’
maybe she was better off dead than alive

I don’t remember anyone saying that
but I doubt it would’ve helped
Not when it’s your best friend - and you’re five

My uncle shot my dog

My uncle shot my dog
and went to his grave unforgiven
Maybe I can get it done before I go to mine

Ralph

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Dogs / November 28, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Ralph was a lab
and mostly smart as a lab
yet dumb as smart people can be

Examples of dumb...
Leaping on point from the back of a pickup
when a covey of quail had flushed
and skinning his nose on the landing
Putting porcupine on the menu for lunch
and coming home with a mouthful of quills

Example of smart...
Listening to me explain
how when you live on a ranch
forty miles from a vet I'm the vet
and quietly letting me pull them all out

Movies Got It Wrong

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Cowboys, Westerns, Work / November 27, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Most of the real cowboying
was riding off into the sunrise

Saddling up in the first half-light
to get to where the cattle are
while those doggies are still doggy

Do as much with them as you can
before the heat and the heel flies hit
then head your tired horses home

Sunsets ain't for riding into
they're meant for bullshit and beer
leaning on the fence like you earned it

Jim

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Persepective, Tobacco / November 26, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

First year on the ranch one of the hands was Jim
seventy years old and Methuselah to my twenty-one

Five foot two with always a chew
never walked but ran wherever he went
tractor to truck, house to barn he never slowed down

Now that I've reached his age and passed it
starting to realize what he might have been running from

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

Where Were You When

Audio Recordings, Farm, News, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Assassination, Death, John Kennedy / November 22, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The story of how John F. Kennedy was killed
still mixes in with the story of how I heard it

Half a sentence tugging at my greasy sleeve
as I rush from the parts store in Moose Jaw

Picking up more on CBC radio in the pickup
heading west at eighty on Highway One

The urgency of the world waiting
for more news on his condition
not greater in a time of harvest
than my father's anxiety
to get the damn thing fixed
and the crop off before it rained

The moment in time when Kennedy
succumbed to his head woulds
in a Dallas hospital
was lost in the sound of the combine

Ode to the Farmer

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Appreciation, Danger, Death, Hunger / November 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport

What flapping empty-fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off
by power take-offs

What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers

And what of those neighbours
dead and true
who for a minute forgetting
what they knew
through red machines
combined with their grain

All these have earned his dusty tear
and many a “who’s next” fear

Year after year after year after year

And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of his goodness
are growing
while the world
turns in slow seasons

And he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb
with wheat

The Farm, The Ranch and the Sweeping Scythe

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Environment, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Adversity, Beauty, Death, Hardship, Weather / November 8, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sunrise can be brilly bright
and all day long
everything out to get you

The horse can kick or fall
the bull has horns of steel

Every machine is grinding its teeth
in wait for a chance to bite

and every snowstorm
eager to find you
too far from the barn
and stiffen you like the manure-pile cat

The sunsets worth surviving for

1 Reply

Farm and Ranch Nowadays

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / November 7, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Tractors keep getting bigger
combines and chemicals too

Ranching a hundred years
a horse a saddle and a rope

Author’s Uncle Arnold on Wallis tractor, Saskatchewan 1928

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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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