Blog stuff and a bit of nostalgia about a poem

Remember the Tag! You're It! blog game? Of the people I tagged, the first has posted her answers to ten questions about her work in progress. Read about Suzanne Barrett's first romantic suspense novel, after great success as the author romances set mostly in Ireland and some in California. Read it at httpp://www.suzannebarrett.com.

And in case you missed it on Facebook, I have to repeat Bill Crider's kind assessment of Judy's Stew in the November 2012 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: "Judy Alter is a Texan and an award-winning author of Western fiction, with sixty or so books to her credit. She also writes mysteries about Kelly O'Connell, a real estate agent who finds herself stumbling over bodies. Alter's blog is Judy's Stew (judys-stew.blogspot.com/). It's a personal blog rather than a review site. Sometimes Alter talks about her writing ("That Awful First Page") and sometimes about other things, like dogs and book signings and her family. Whatever the topic, Alter's always engaging and worth your reading time." I'm thrilled, so here's my ongoing attempt to be engaging:
The day there was no school, Jacob spent the afternoon playing with a friend. He was so excited about this that he was up at seven-thirty, dressed and ready to go. I had to tell him it would be after lunch. But that night I called to ask if he'd had fun, and he reported among other things that he blurted out that he and his friend had "made a tree." Before I knew it, the words out of my mouth were "Only God can make a tree." They had found acorns, dug a hole, spit on the acorns and covered them up...and they fully expect a tree to grow. Not sure about their time frame.
The next afternoon, while we were working on the interminable jigsaw puzzle--500 tiny pieces--I asked Elizabeth if she knew the poem and she, in her early forties, said no. So I decided it was a generational thing. That night at supper with a group of contemporaries I asked the same question and they all knew it. One man even quoted the last lines.
Of course I had to look up the entire text of Joyce Kilmer's poem which I'm sure I memorized in grade school. So here it is for those of you who want to take a memory trip.

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

       -- Joyce Kilmer