Our Poets in Columbia County, N.Y.

Phyllis Carito

Phyllis Carito, MFA, is a writer, poet, and educator who lives in Kinderhook. Her books of poetry include: barely a whisper, The Stability of Trees in The Winds of Grief, and Worn Masks. Other work has appeared in Gathering Flowers, Gray Love, Passager Journal, Voices in Italian Americana, Vermont Literary Review, Trolley NYS Writer's Institute, Mediterranean Review, and Persimmon Tree. Phyllis's most recent work is a novel, More Than Making Ends Meet.

phylliscarito.weebly.com

Elizabeth Poreba

Elizabeth Poreba moved to New Lebanon with her husband in 1985 and promptly began her career as a weekend gardener, supported by her weekday career as a high school English teacher in New York City. She and her husband John have two daughters, who are now married and living in California and Florida; there are currently three grandchildren on two coasts.

Elizabeth has published a chapbook, The Family Calling (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and a full-length collection of poems, Vexed (Wipf and Stock, 2015). Her poems have appeared in This Full Green Hour (Sonopo Press, 2008) Ducts.org, First Literary Review East and Commonweal, among other on-line and print publications.

In the next life

by Phyllis Carito

In the next life

I will be a tree

a stately redwood

reaching into the sky

catching the sea breeze of the Pacific

circled in family

grounded in fragrant moist soil.

Why a tree you ask?

Because they have roots

and they sway.

Sublimation

by Elizabeth Poreba

If raspberries cooked become a flavor that lasts through winter;

If that solar plane can fly through night powered by light;

If Clyde Tombaugh can make a telescope from auto parts and hope,

find Pluto, a dot moving among the photographs,

and now his ashes can sail to it in a space craft;

If we can take whatever shines and distill it,

making it into flight or savor or spirit, so our souls

can ease in and out of flesh, coming and going,

as the trees breathe and we return their breathing.

Joanne Auerbach

Joanne Auerbach was a member of the Poetry Caravan in Westchester County from 2005 until 2020 when it became inactive. Bringing the Caravan north was a post retirement idea which happily came to fruition in 2015, thanks to the support, encouragement, and participation of numerous talented individuals. Joanne holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Gannon University, and earned a master’s degree in the field of Therapeutic Recreation from NYU. She was, for many years, a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist, who in retirement enjoys putting into practice all the things she advocated for her patients during her long career. She grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania, but has lived in New York for many years. She and her husband Steve divide their time between Hartsdale and Chatham, NY. Joanne’s poems have appeared in Let the Poets Speak and in Totem, the arts publication of Gannon University.

Steve has given us a photo where only half a face is to be seen

Steve Auerbach

Steve would like to be considered as one of America’s great unpublished, unknown, and unread poets. He graduated from Hofstra University with a B.B.A. in Industrial Accounting, hardly a great starting point for a career in poetry. From that time, his creative pursuits have been relegated to a highly sensitive, but remote, portion of his brain, where they rested — not unlike fine wine in an oaken barrel.

With his business career reaching its conclusion, he is attempting to reconnect the synapses to that lost cerebral region. So far the results have been encouraging, as he looks for fine vintage poems to pour out, to the delight of all.

Judy Staber

Judy Staber turned to poetry in the 1980s after the collapse of her first marriage. Several of her poems have been published, singly. Growing up in England, she came to the States in 1959 and worked in the theatre until marriage and motherhood took over. For more than thirty years, after raising her daughters, she has promoted the arts. She moved to Chatham in the 1990s and for almost nine years she ran the Spencertown Academy where she founded the Pantoloons, writing a new Panto every year for fifteen years. Her memoir, “Silverlands Growing Up at the Actors Orphanage” was published in 2010. She has just finished an art history-mystery novel set in Spain called “Casa Loca.” She writes and lives happily in Old Chatham with her pilot husband John. Judy's most recent book is "Rise Above It, Darling."

Leslie Klein

Leslie Klein is an artist and writer, living in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Her op-eds, feature stories, and poetry have been published in various newspapers and magazines. Her first book of poetry, Driving Through Paintings, was published by Shanti Arts Publishing. Leslie has had a long career teaching and showing her clay sculpture in galleries and juried exhibitions. She was commissioned to create the sculpture for The Boston Freedom Award.

Amanda Merk

Amanda Merk is the director of the Chatham Public Library. Amanda has enjoyed words, language, and writing since she was a small child. She has been writing poetry and personal essays and sharing her writings with friends and family nearly all her life. Now she is pleased to join the Poetry Caravan to bring the joy of poetry read aloud to others.

Too Late

by Joanne Auerbach

The blue Japanese happi coat

I wore at breakfast

Was new 30 years ago.

For years it clothed only a hanger

in my closet.

Was I afraid that it would fade?

Was I afraid that carelessly handled coffee

would stain it?

Was I afraid that the embroidered butterflies

would fly away?
Was I afraid that I was not good enough?

Too late I noticed that age alone

had caused it to pale,

had caused seam threads to break.

Too late I noticed that

all these years it had pined

longing to embrace me.

Class Photo Discovered

by Steve Auerbach

Her name was Phyllis...or it may have been Sandra,

or perhaps time has morphed two into one.

After all it was eleven presidents ago,

in that time when the universes of boys and girls

overlapped, but never intersected.

She wasn't the chosen one,

the girl who induced that flow of hormonal weirdness.

Nor was she the scholar, dazzling with brilliance and

destined for greatness.

Not the apprentice Jezebel able to mince

the nascent heart of a boy, with a few words and an icy stare

nor hardly the hub of the social chessboard,

sacrificing a pawn or two for strategic advantage.

She was just nice...and caring...and kind,

occupying the same position on the rim of her universe

as I in mine.

Now, for some reason she has strobed into my thoughts,

and I hope that life has been kind to her.

Letter to Charlotte

by Judy Staber

Dear Charlotte.

Did you know, ever since I first opened your book

and began to read about you to my little ones,

so many years ago,

That I have never, since that day,

been able to kill a spider.

That the sight of dewdrops

clinging to your web, in the early morning,

is soul-lifting.

That a pig, which, when I was a child,

seemed a stupid and slightly vicious animal,

Could become embued with wit and pathos.

And that even rats could be bearable.

I wish he hadn't killed you.

I mourn you still.

Charlotte, you helped my children to grow up kind.

You moved my Abby so, that her tears

fell on the page where you died,

and you became to me, what you were to Wilbur,

(and what I feel it is more important to be

than anything else in this world )

a good writer and a good friend.

Magic

by Leslie Klein

I believe in magic.

I see it everywhere –

from butterfly metamorphose

to bird migration.

Magical feats

of strength, determination,

patience and crafting.

I see magic

in spider web stringing,

bird nest weaving,

hummingbird hovering,

seedlings pushing through soil.

I believe in the magic of birth itself –

mothers cradling young

within their bodies or

hatching eggs that

crack with life.

I see magic

in the daily tricks

of dawn and dusk –

painting color on the sky.

The deep black

of night splattered

with sparkling light.

Rainbows reaching across

clouds, bridging the horizon.

The scent of flowers in a

burst of bloom.

Bees storing honey in

waxy combs.

The death of fall,

chill of winter white,

music and color

reappearing in spring,

summer’s sultry buzz.

These are the things I Wanted to Tell You

by Amanda Merk

These are the things I wanted to tell you

Before it was too late

These are the things I wanted to tell you

But my heart froze in my throat

These are the things:

I like the way you drive

I never felt more comfortable than with you behind the wheel

You could back your truck up like you were threading a needle

You tried to teach me to drive your big truck but it was a disaster

I wanted to tell you “thank you” for trying.

I wanted to tell you:

I like the way you hold your fork and knife

I like the way you cut everything on your plate up before you eat, like a mother cutting her child’s food

I like the way you hum when you eat

I remember when you told me, “we belong here” when you took me to the best Steakhouse in Boston on a cold night in December on Boylston Street

I wanted to tell you that you were right

We did belong there, me in my leopard print dress and you in your work boots.

I wanted to tell you I am sorry I did not help you up when you fell in the deep snow.

I laughed at you and left you to struggle.

I wish I had extended my arm.

I wanted to tell you I am glad we went through that historic winter together.

It felt like eight feet of snow fell in Boston that year.

You could barely make it down the streets, the drifts were so high.

They called out the National guard and the snow piles didn’t melt until July.

I wanted to tell you my favorite night with you

February and freezing cold

Walking along Humarock Beach

Listening to the song the waves make in the loose rocks

You had no hat and no gloves

But I don’t think we were ever happier

Getting lost walking back through the ocean cottages, back to your truck

Driving past the DO NOT ENTER signs

All the way out to a spit of land

Darkness of winter

Stars blazing overhead

Things I wanted to tell you

That I loved you with my whole heart

That I love you still