Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 8, Number 2. November 2025. ISSN: 2581-7094
The Trees
---
Maria Famà
I place my hand on the sturdy bark
of the Sycamore Tree on Juniper Street
I send the tree my love
feel its strength
its energy
Trees communicate
Trees talk all day
all night
Trees send out messages of love and warning
through the air
under the ground
Trees speak the wisdom of the planet
Trees speak in whispers over miles and nearby
messages carried on wind water
clouds
through rain
snow sunshine starshine
Trees speak poetry to each other in a
language of tenderness and toughness
The trees tell of their love for this planet
The trees send warnings of danger:
too many storms
too much heat too many
chemicals
Bird, mammal, reptile, insect, fish,
we all must learn in humility
the language of trees
We must learn to heed the warnings
We must learn to practice the love
that the trees impart to us all.
My Help
---
Maria Famà
Donkeys, dogs, elephants, horses, wolves, bees,
cats, chickens, ducks, eagles, foxes, butterflies,
and bears
all need my help
The whales, the dolphins, the monkeys, rhinos, and
hippos,
cows and pigs, goats and sheep
all need my help
Humans caused the suffering
Humans founded the organizations
where I send my donations
because so many animals need my help
How can I save them from cruelty
with my few dollars
How can I save them from exploitation
With my meager gifts
How can I save them from extinction
with my small donations to their causes
How can I save myself from
all the thoughtless viciousness of my species?
I Run
---
Maria Famà
In my dreams
I run and run
though in my waking life I cannot
In dreams
I run through the streets
of Rome
Athens Tokyo Rio
I run up and down staircases
up and down mountains
run and run and run on the beach
in joy and exhilaration
In my waking life
I hobble along with my cane
sometimes in joy
sometimes in fear
I plod along through the waking world
while dashing through my dreamscapes
This is my balance
This has got to be enough.
Xena
---
Maria Famà
I meet Xena Warrior Princess at Best Buy
decades after the campy TV show ended
I am there to buy a new cell phone
They tell me to wait for Xena I wait a half hour until
Xena, the Technological Warrior Princess, arrives
a beautiful, young, smart Amazon in a Best Buy shirt
with long, dark, wild hair
Xena sets up my new phone
Efficient
kind she has a lovely smile
I tell her that long before she was born
I watched a show called Xena Warrior Princess
she laughs
she’s heard of it never saw it
I ask if she is Greek Xena says she is an Arab
I say I am Sicilian
Both Greeks and Arabs left their mark on the island
Xena needs my address she notes South Philly
Do I know the Bitar brothers?
Yes, I know them
I knew their parents
They are family friends
owners of Philly’s flagship Bitar’s Middle Eastern
grocery,
Jersey’s Norma’s Restaurant with Arab cuisine and
belly dancing
These are Xena’s family friends too
An old TV show
a Mediterranean island the
Bitar brothers
All are Xena and my passing connections
Xena, Warrior Princess of Best Buy,
As-Salaam-Alaikum
I wish you peace
I wish you health.
Cantaloupe Slices
---
Maria Famà
In the summer of the last year
of the last
century
Juliette and I sat on lawn chairs
In her
California backyard
the scent of cedar perfumed the morning breeze
we ate a breakfast of toast, tea, and cantaloupe
slices
Julie’s Abyssinian cats Jagger
and Tiger at our feet
enjoying cantaloupe slices on paper plates
In the next century’s first decade
Juliette would die the house sold the cats gone
Yet on that morning under a peaceful sky
we spoke softly of the sight seeing
Juliette had planned for me: museums,
a new housing development, an old apple orchard
For me, though, that fresh morning
was enough and everything
savoring Juliette’s company
taking pleasure in watching
cats chomp on cantaloupe slices.
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Bio:
Maria Famà is the author of nine
books of poetry. Her work appears in
numerous publications and has been anthologized. Famà has read her poetry in many cities
across the United States, read one of her stories on National Public Radio, co-founded
a video production company, and recorded her poetry for CD compilations of
music and poetry. Maria Famà did her undergraduate and graduate work in History
at Temple University. Famà’s poems were
awarded the 2002 and 2005 Aniello Lauri Award in Creative Writing, the 2005 Amy
Tritsch Needle Award for Poetry, and the Petracca Award for Poetry in
2018. In 2018, Famà won the Second Prize
in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards She
appears in the film documentaries “Prisoners Among Us,” “Pipes of Peace,” and
“La Mia Strada: My Way” reading her poems. Her latest books of poems are: Trigger,
published by Bordighera Press in 2024, The Good for the Good, published by Bordighera Press in 2019; Other
Nations: an animal journal, published by Pearlsong Press in 2017, and Mystics
in the Family, published in 2013 by Bordighera Press. Maria Famà lives and works in
Philadelphia.
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