Lines in Late March / John G. Neihardt

I whistle: why not?
Have I not seen the first strips of green winding up the sloughs?
Have I not heard the meadow-lark?
I have looked into the soft blue skies and have been uplifted!

Where are the doubts and dark ideas I entertained?
What have I caught from the maple-buds that changes me?
Or was it the meadow-lark – or the blue sky – or the strips of green?
The green that winds up the sloughs?

I sought the dark and found much of it.
Is there in truth much darkness?
Have the meadow-larks lied to me?
Have the green grass and the blue sky testified falsely ?

I want to trust the sky and the grass!
I want to believe the songs I hear from the fence-posts!
Why should a maple-bud mislead me?

~~ 

John G. Neihardt (1881-1973)

from A Bundle of Myrrh, 1907

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]

John G. Neihardt biography