a discussion post to my BYUI Math class FDMAT 108 Math for the Real World

We invited a friend of ours to plant to a garden in our garage that would supply an herbal remedy. I had no hope that this would be a solution or even supply any healing properties. I knew that it would supply some hope to the children and ease the transition for them to my wife’s passing.


As I saw my wife, children, and the gardener interacting I saw hope and joy and happiness return to their lives. I worked two jobs to finance the home and the garden in the garage. I no longer felt a part of their lives. I was distant and separated from them. One day sitting on the back porch of our home, I could hear them laughing and smiling and having a good time around a campfire in the backyard. I wanted so desperately to be part of their world. That is when I wrote my first poem.


I never wanted to be a poet. I read very few poets. I like John Milton, Carol Lynn Pearson, and Eugene England. I especially hate the obligatory poems that rhyme at the ending of each line. I prefer blank verse like David Whyte or visual poetry like E.E. Cummings.


This poetry gave me an outlet for the anger and shame and regret to flow forth. It comes like puss from a wound, deep within my soul. With time I gained the courage to share it on Facebook and then with selected friends.


You ask how did poetry help me to develop a growth mindset. It forced me to develop a hidden talent that had always rested at the center of my being.  As I wrote more poems, they came naturally to me. They seem to spring forth like a great lava plume from my soul. I rarely think about and seldom edit them more than once or twice. They are always about some thoughts I have had for years.


Today wife is fully cured. She is in remission. All signs of cancer have left her body when the doctors saw her MRI’S they stopped asking questions. I have no idea why it worked. I have no idea why Christ cured a man by rubbing dirt in his eyes. I don’t even know how God appeared to Joseph Smith in the woods. I just know these things happened. I think when we are hurting and in pain, if we listen to God, he will help heal the parts of our souls that are in pain. I do not say he cures all cancers. I do know he has ways to ease the pain and help to carry our burdens. Like the poetry, he supplies means to handle the pain and to increase the joy.

Here is that first poem a real gift from God.


On life or is it death.

To come to life,
or is it death.

To question now,
this life or love

T'is death to live,
and not to love

To question now,
to this I must

To love I must,
though life be short.

For tis it death,
to love no more.

Steven Bassett
March 2015

http://www.mymuzes.org/2015/02/on-life-or-is-it-death.html (Links to an external site.)

Edited by Steven Bassett on Jan 10 at 7:34am