3 Poems by Mary Jo Balistreri

Jam Session

                    Yellow finches perch
                                on swaying Niger-seed feeders

while hummers change sound

into light. It’s early but wind

plays rhythm, whisks cluster-

chord chimes, snares limbs

of bellowing bass, swishes

soft across pond’s skin.

Tempo scoops and lifts

spun wings of birds

impatient red accent

buzz of vibration

melodic quotation.

They will jam

until the sun grows high

until Honeysuckle Rose whorls

her sweet trumpet in the gathering heat.

  

Degas’ Woman

A woman bends for shells in the early light,

the ample tenderness of her curved back

a soft charcoal outline Degas might have

rubbed, making summer out of pastel and canvas.

Across her bare feet, a song of morning swooshes

pale green against the rounded, still form.

Small children inch into the surf,

their flowered hats blooming like water lilies.

The woman’s spine, bent like a fishing rod,

bows to the sea’s abundance, a connection

of give—and—take generosity.

Finding her treasure, she rises, slowly, the shell

cradled in her cupped hands. She smiles,

pleased with the beauty she holds as the children

draw near to see. Up above, gulls wing in the sheeted sky,

their looped script, black and silver.

The sun shifts, the shell gatherer rises, and memory nests,

curved line inside the woman, inside the observer, inside the poem,

where in the ongoing present

nothing is ever lost.

 haiku

torn from tree for love

honey-sharpened by fierce sun

tongues of bright mangoes

Bionote:

Mary Jo writes poetry in a spirit of discovery, of witness, and of trying to understand who she is and her place in the world. She has been published in Avocet, Passager, The Healing Muse, Verse Wisconsin and others. Bellowing Ark Press published two books of poems, Joy in the Morning, 2008, and Gathering the Harvest, 2012. Please visit her website for more information: maryjobalistreripoet.com