Congratulations Ilene!

Our own resident poet and executive board member, Ilene Bauer, had her poem Seltzer Bottles published in the Metropolitan Diary section of yesterday's N Y Times.


SELTZER BOTTLES

I often pass a window

Near the street where I reside,

And glancing at it, visions of my past

It does provide.

For it contains two seltzer bottles,

Spritzers facing in.

I wonder if my childhood home

Is one place they have been.

For growing up in Brooklyn,

Seltzer bottles we would get,

Delivered in a wooden box,

Along with one U-Bet.

To make a perfect egg cream,

You put U-Bet in a glass.

Your mom said, “Just a little!”

An amount you would surpass.

On top of all that syrup,

You’d add milk, but just a splash.

Then you’d squirt the seltzer in

And mix it in a flash.

Voilà! The bubbles burbled as

From bottom up they rose;

And as you sipped, you always got

A tickle on your nose.

The seltzer in the stores now

Doesn’t have that wicked squirt.

If you could taste the difference,

Why, I’m sure you would convert.

So when I see those bottles,

I begin to reminisce;

And seltzer joins the list of things

From childhood that I miss.

Ilene Bauer