aren’t actually green-
not when you really see them.
But really, how rarely
do we see clearly?
There’s a green glazed in violet,
one blasted with blackness,
sage and sea, kelly and army,
tastes of lime, mint, and olive,
hues of hunter, fern, and jungle.
All greens,
but to call any one
“green”
is to miss so much-
to miss what makes each its own,
to miss the small and misunderstood
part that it brings to this beauty.
Differences seeming ever so slight
shift with the sun to show
us what we should already know:
all lay in perception and perpetual motion.
And today the greens on Red Hill
remind this man
nobody is really all good or bad,
nothing wholly black or white,
or green.
-Josh Nicolaisen
Josh Nicolaisen has taught English in both public and private schools for more than ten years. He organizes and officiates snowboard and freeski events and is the owner of Old Man Gardening LLC. Josh lives in New Hampshire with his wife, Sara, and their daughters, Grace, and Azalea. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in So It Goes, Writers Resist, The Poets of New England: Volume 1 (Underground Writers Association), and Indolent Books’ online project, What Rough Beast.