A Collection of Poems and Short Stories

By Dee Finkelstein

Dee was born in 1930 to a family in the grips of the Great Depression. This endowed her with a thriftiness and economy of living that carried her to better times. A creative soul, Dee longed to go to art school and was offered a full scholarship at Duke, but it wasn't meant to be. Her father forbade her from attending Duke, and she soon found herself married with a young baby girl.
Her creative spirit somehow survived all the demands of being a fifties' housewife, who was also a working Mom, long before this was accepted in polite society. She found time to put pen or paint to paper after a day of working, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and generally running her small family. She was extraordinarily competent in everything she tried, but she is most proud of her time as Executive Director of the American Heart Association of Lancaster County, where she set fundraising records. After retirement, she put her mind to traveling before moving to North Carolina to be closer to her family in her later years. Over all these years, she penned and drew her feelings, capturing the essence and emotions of several generations of women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350926330

Book preview

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A Collection of Poems and Short Stories

Dee Finkelstein

ISBN (Print Edition): 979-8-35092-632-3

ISBN (eBook Edition): 979-8-35092-633-0

© 2023. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is dedicated to my great-grandchildren,

Sydney, Isabel, Siena, Hannah, and Jameson.

May their lives be joyful and true.

Poems

A Life

A Task Well Done

A Roll in the Sack

I Thought of a Friend

A Leaf

Distressing Mood

Do You Hear Me?

Fly Me

Fade into the Shadows

God! Where Was I?

Window

The Clouds Form Patterns

Housekeeping

I Hate Goodbyes

I'm Sinking

I'm Sorry, Dear

I Need

Iron Structure

Ivy Covered

Laments from a Mother of a Teenage Daughter

Loneliness

Magic

Make Me Strong

True for Me

Mothers

Ms.

My Daughter

My Hand

My Coat

Will you?

My Son

Nowhere

Pillow

I'm Pissed

Penguins

Privacy

Quality of Life

Raking Leaves

Recollections

You are a Part of My Life

Red Light District

Running

Someone Who Knows

Thank You

The Mirror

The Sun Rises

The Surf

Tonight

The Three Me's

The Wind and Rain

Thunder

When You Love

Where Does Love Go?

Where is the Little Girl?

You Are My Own

Soda Sobs

Welcome to America

Life in These United States

Halloween

Skiing

My Best Friend

Enclosed are notes turned into poems and stories left to be found anywhere. A hobby was born and added to my other hobbies of skiing, music, painting, sewing, reading, sailing, golfing, and traveling (three continents, forty-three countries, and thirty-two states).

Read on.

Love,

Dee

Mom

Grandmom

Nana

Aunt Dee

Gaga

and other relatives and friends

Special thanks go to JoAnne Stella, who first transcribed my hand-written notes onto the printed page; my grandsons Hans and Chris Russell, and their wives, Laura and Jaime; Hans for merging these individual documents, Laura for compiling them into the first hard cover book format for close family and friends, Chris for brightening my Friday afternoons, and Jaime for compiling a contact list; and my daughter, Donna Mellon, for learning all about self-publishing and making this collection available to the public.

Works of art, including the cover art, were created by me, dating back to 1948. I am so pleased to share them with you.

A Life

I’m working on a life;

It’s only mine . . .

but I’m working on it.

Pieces,

all sizes and shapes.

Some fit

some don’t

a push

a shove

but

much, much love

could breathe the breath

needed

to keep me

working on a life.

A Task Well Done

A task well done.

Maybe two, not one.

A life well spent,

things given, not