Three Poems by Nick Courtright

These three poems by Nick Courtright reflect on humanity’s relationship to nature — from awe to tenderness and humor…

by: Nick Courtright

Humankind

We walk through the forest 
to the waterfall and get in. 
It is ice, but instead of being 
solid, somehow it has 
become wet. It runs down 
our faces like a river, because 
that’s what it is. The surrounding 
trees call us naked, and we say 
it takes one to know one. 
The stars are like seltzer, like 
always. Earlier the sun 
had been a ball, in its predictable 
way. Unlike the moon 
we can count on its shape. 
We count every day when there 
is a drought. We count every drop 
when there is a monsoon. 
Because we cannot count 
very high, the monsoon 
ends quickly. We wake up 
very late to draw conclusions 
from the movements of clouds. 
They course across the sky 
like dancers. One takes the shape 
of a mango. We point at it. 
That one is our father, we say.

A Little Less Perfect

What if the grass were less 
green, less lush, maybe even 
less pleasantly pointy at the top 
of each blade? What about the red 
leaves in autumn, could we 
make those blander and browner 
faster, and could we use a word 
less gorgeous than autumn? 
For the stones, less hard 
would be interesting, and not 
so heavy, the big ones at least. 
The big ones could be smaller, too, 
while we’re at it. Those dragonflies 
flittering away above the pristine 
creek, triple them in size 
and make them bite. That would 
really do something about all this 
wonderfulness everywhere. 
The sunset over the sea, no, 
no, can’t do that anymore. 
Only hurricanes now, but for those 
hurricanes, let’s make them calmer, 
so even their grandeur is grayer 
in spirit. As for love, oh outrageous 
love tall as the Himalayas
and warm as a new pair of slippers, 
it’s already so awful, 
let’s just keep that the way it is.

What Is the Grass

We learn more and more and yet 
the great mystery remains all around us. 
The genome sequenced, rockets 
like flaming arrows exiting the atmosphere, 
every little cell inspected 
by an eager grad student. And yet, like 
Achilles (lol), we fight until our grave 
weakness is exposed. Then we are buried.
Then the hummingbird will keep 
its invisible wings pattering the air, 
the unread books printed in great numbers
and burned in a pile. I don’t know why 
it has to be this way, and that’s the point. 
George Washington crosses the Delaware
and soon enough he can’t speak. 
Sappho writes her verses into dust. 
A child takes its bungling first steps. 
They think they’ve discovered 
the most fundamental particle in physics 
and it gets six hours of the news cycle. 
Even if we wanted to know, we really don’t.

As a National Poetry Series Finalist with work published in The Harvard Review, The Southern Review, and Kenyon Review Online, among other journals, Nick Courtright is Founder and CEO of Atmosphere Press, a literary hybrid publisher that provides meaningful and rewarding experiences to writers. He is the author of the poetry collections The Forgotten World (“highly memorable,” says Eduardo C. Corral), Let There Be Light (“a continual surprise and a revelation,” says Naomi Shihab Nye), and Punchline (“nothing short of a knockout,” says Timothy Donnelly). His latest book, on poetry interpretation, is In Perfect Silence at the Stars: Walt Whitman and the Meaning of Poems (“an exhilarating book,” says Donald Revell). He holds an MFA/PhD in Literature.

Find him online at nickcourtright.com and living in the real world in Austin, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; and Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica, where he administers the Playa Flamingo Writing Residency.