Jason Christie





	Jason Christie

	A Restless Scythe
	Moonlight shoots between the leaves and branches, slants jagged shadows onto the dark ground, and shackles darkness to reveal edges. Thus carved, the sleek figures move blue through the night mist, their images shine and fade as they stripe their way further into the forest. Listen: slow wing beats mark the path of their retreat. The interior of the forest resounds with the noise of the wind through their feathers when they scatter.

	Prescription
	Ravens circle the forest, above the green treetops. They know there are wolves in the forest. The stones rattle over a long enough period of time into smaller ravens. They take flight, then join the circle high above the poem. Older ravens land amongst the dead leaves and dry branches by the river at the entrance to the forest. They settle where they land and are as motionless as stones. They become rocks to solve their permanence.

	So Much Dust
	Trees fall, rivers fall and fail. Let the water carry itself away. The arrogant trees fall, the river falls, bends then fails beside the falls. Where the rocks churn into dust then foam, the animals translate their environment into a hesitancy when they talk. It keeps them frozen, then it falls. The weather fails them, then it too falls. What is left when the snow melts? Only the hesitancy to mark the spot the forest fell.

	Tensity
	From everywhere and all at once except for one single point. To that point from everywhere all at once then back again and then to that point again from everywhere all at once. The forest perches. Prehensile limbs, the trees the river, wolves, ravens, rocks, owls and more all transit from everywhere all at once and then to that point. The speed lost even in the moment of intention. Leaves gust behind branches, raven wings are whipped back, rocks roll into pebbles. That motionless point is a myth lost somewhere in the reality of the forest, not hidden, rather not being looked for, and somewhere in that myth the moon rises over a red sea that is exactly the opposite of the forest. The tension between this myth and the desire for its discovery produces every variety of story in the forest.

	__________ Jason Christie is the author of Canada Post (Snare) and most recently i-ROBOT: poetry by Jason Christie (EDGE). Along with Angela Rawlings and Derek Beaulieu, he edited the widely acclaimed anthology Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry. Jason's poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines in Canada and the United States. He is currently working on a new collection of prose poems.