on gender confusion

 Why can’t little boys be allowed to raise their babies while their wives run off to earn the bread?

There was a time when I wanted to be a little girl. I wanted to cook and clean and to sew. I tried to take home economics when I was in Jr. High. In the 1970’ this was not permitted, so they signed me up woodshop and tried to turn me into a little boy.

I am not saying I wanted female genitalia. I like my male organs. I long to be with and create a new life with a woman, even if to practice and not to create.

In our society, we confuse sex with gender. Before the 20th century, this was not a problem. When we lived on farms, fathers took their sons into the fields and came home to help their wives with the garden to prepare the meals. My grandfather in the swiss alps lived with his animals, the added warmth carried them through the rough alpine winters.

Suddenly at the end of World War II, the men came home and needed jobs, so we fired all of the women who worked in the shipyard and flew the planes, delivered to the war front. Women were unhappy with this thing forced on them but what choice was left to them?

On our television, we created the false narrative of the “Leave it to Beaver” family. My grandmother must have felt the weight of not fitting into this new paradigm. She had always worked to feed the family and do her housework. Grandpa never earned enough, as a gravedigger to support the ten children, so she worked at the Deseret Industries or she cleaned motel rooms. The children when they were older worked to support the family.

They were looked down at school because the best she could afford was Levi’s and clean white t-shirts.

We need to separate sex from gender. Maybe if more men were permitted to stay home and raise the babies and their wives were encouraged to join the corporate world, or learn to weld, or program computers less of them would be gender confused?

I had an Uncle Eddie who was an orderly and loved to care for older people. He relaxed in the evening by watching football and crocheting while wearing a mumu. He had his hair in curlers preparing to look good the next day at work. He was not gender-confused. He was happy to be what he was. He found a good woman who enjoyed his lifestyle, and they enjoyed a good life.

I hope more of you are permitted to be good little boys and good little girls without reference to your biological sex.

When I Was a Boy by Dar Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5YzRr9yPo&fbclid=IwAR3lw1OcKVtTqC0h5x3QnlRIGCKCvFwSVvHUKIwGpJ-BYiHXDkDzRcCTLm0

On being too old to give a dam

Maybe, I am getting too old to give a dam.  I have spent far too many years and shed too many tears knowing I am not a good enough Mormon.  I grew up in a morally challenged family.  Yes, Momma and Daddy were married in the temple but then they stopped attending church services.  Momma always believed in the promises she made to me, my father and my siblings at that alter in the temple.

It seems even though we date back to Nauvoo, we always have to be rescued every generation,  re-herded to church attendance, but we always believe.  In our family reunion, we have two traditions.  The first is the late-night campfire, it is half A.A, Meeting and half family testimony meeting. The second is the family meeting on Sunday.  It is a half talent show and half testimony meeting. 

We mingle as one, the half that holds temple recommends, and the half that holds an adult beverage.  We all sing “I Am Child of God” and deeply believe it.  We are one family, we might fight each other but we will never allow and an outsider to come between us.

About two weeks ago I was discovered by a group of family members that I never imagined existed.  I was contacted by my son's siblings from his birth father.  The thought never occurred to me that Alan was married before him and Nancy.  I never even took the time to learn his last name, and now his ex-wife and children have welcomed us into their family.  What a joy to have our family expanded. You can never have enough family.

I hope you are soon too old to give a dam.  I hope you find and expand your family.  I hope you find love and joy in life and in living the kind of life Yashua Ben-Joseph (I.E. Jesus Christ his Christian name) would have you live.

Nothing About Me is Mormon Anymore - Al Fox Carraway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiEgU2EZUmE&feature=youtu.be

A paper for comm150

My goal this semester was to increase my communication skills with my wife.  Because of the needs of our aging parents, I live with my father and my wife lives in our family home in a town about 20 miles away.  My father needs daily guidance and her mom needs physical assistance.  My goal then was to see if I could increase our communications and intimacy using texting, voice calls, weekly visits, and sharing the poetry I write.

Take a walk down memory lane with me today.
My parents have always been very central to my very soul even through the many decades I was angry about the way they raised me the first three years of my life.   I used to borrow my mom’s van when I would make weekly trips to Wyoming repairing big-screen TVs in people’s homes.  I would play this song for hours on her cassette deck.  I selected my wife based on the relationship she would build with my family.  My wife and my sister became best friends while I was courting my wife.  Today they run a day-care center together.

"I was standing at the counter

I was waiting for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start
It was like a lighted match had been tossed into my soul
It was like a dam had broken in my heart
After taking every detour
Gettin' lost and losin' track
So that even if I wanted I could not find my way back
After driving out the memory
Of the way, things might have been
After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when”

Trisha Yearwood, The Song Remembers When

My wife and I listened to this song a great deal when we were first married.  I sent her this link one morning to remind her of my love for her and the life we built together.

“Remember when I was young and so were you
“And time stood still and love was all we knew
You were the first, so was I
We made love and then you cried
Remember when”

Alan Jackson "Remember When"

I wrote this poem for one of my English classes last year.  It is about the first time my wife and I made love on our second day of married life.  The day we were married was a busy day.  My wife planned, decorated, and hosted her own wedding reception so by the time we made it to the hotel room that night she was very tired.  We made that first night a pajama night.  The second day was in our apartment where her family and friends have helped her move her stuff the previous week including her king-size water bed. We had spent that Sunday visiting my sister and blessing her first son Fridy Leishman.  We have never had a honeymoon, life just got to busy.  That night she escorted me to the bridal chamber and ask me to help her make a baby.

On making a baby ...

Let's make a baby,
She said.
It was not the first night,
But the second.
The first had been a pajama night.
Still, he had not slept with a woman,
Except for momma, her momma, or an aunt.
The first day was a busy day,
The wedding breakfast,
Temple ceremony, when he nearly fainted, and the wedding reception.
So, the first night was a pajama night.
She was the first to kiss him,
Except for momma.
That second night, they did try, to make a baby.
Little did they know, He could never create new life.
Still, they loved to try.
The babies did come, send from another who loved them all.
He so loved his Eve.
So times seam tough and life is a struggle,
Still, he knows she was the first and will remain the only,
To ask him, to help her, to make a baby.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2017/08/on-making-baby.html

My wife and her mom have always seemed to be more sisters than mother and daughter.  I wonder what their relationship had been like before they were born.  My wife was 29 when we married and she had a brother and sister young enough to be her children.  She was living at home when we married. she helping her mom to raise these children. When we found out I was not able to create new life we thought we would help her mom with these children and borrow the nieces and nephews on weekends.  My wife started a daycare center in our hope to help with the baby’s pains.  My wife’s sister chose to become our handmaiden and create two children for us to share.   I have taught my children of Nancy’s love for them. The choice she made to create their life and how they need to honor her choice.  They were never a mistake or a problem to be solved.

This is the last picture I have of Ashley, Nicholas, and their older brother Cody.  I really wanted to be Cody’s father but grandpa loved him first.  If we had taken Cody then it would have removed my fathers-in-law desire to live. My mother-in-law raised two babies of her daughter’s and we raised our two.  My wife and her mom did their best to raise them as one family unit in two separate homes.

The Babies they raised together

They were sisters, first, were they not?
Then mother, and daughter.
The babies, then they raised, together.
Unmarried she was and living at home.
Helping her mom with the babies.
Born when out of high school, she was.
Young enough, they were.
They could have been, her children.
Then the young man along came he.
Too young for her was he,
she then 30 and he is 25.
This then the cradle, she robbed.

Then the small house, in the center of town.
It was her grandmother's house, the first they bought,
together.

Then no babies came, to them,
infertile was he, failed her request,
to help make a baby.

Then the daycare center, in their home,
more babies then come, to raise.

Her sister, fertile was she.
This then her gift, a baby, to them.

This then their baby to raise together.

Her mother received a gift, two babies,
from her daughters.

This then more babies, to raise, together.

These babies, siblings would be.
One home, two houses, and three babies to share.

Then later, one final gift, this baby,
to them, this day.

This then the babies, they raised together.

I wanted you to this picture, the joy in my children’s lives.  If you knew Ashley’s and Cody’s history you would wonder how she grew to love and forgive him.  He spent a few years in reform school for the mistakes he made with his sister’s.  When you walk into a courtroom and participate in prosecution and then purchase a van so can visit that a boy, that should have been your first son, you learn the real power of love and forgiveness.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/10/the-babies-they-raised-together.html

This then the drive

This then the drive, to visit, one of the babies.

Nearly grown now, is he?
He is tall.
He is smart.
One of the babies, we raised, together.
But the choices, he made, what of the choices.
He is not what he did, he is one of the babies.
So a used van, I buy, to take them, for a visit.

This then four hours, we will drive, one way.
In the van, my wife and I will sit,
while mom and dad visit with the baby,
now a young man.

I hold a prayer, that is all I can hold.
No influence have, I over this baby.
All I have is my love.

He could have been my first baby,
But grandpa loved him first.
So all I have is my prayer and hope.
A hope that he will become more then he did.
More than he is, now.

This crime, this thing, forgiveness will then come.
For to love is the only choice I have, today.
To choose any other is to damage my soul.
So I will love the boy I have no influence over,
and I will cherish this memory, we make today.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/10/this-then-drive.html

So, you ask how is Bonnie and my relationship, today, I visited her this weekend to again ask this question.  Al least twice a week I ask her if we are good and is she happy.  She reassures me that we are good and that she loves me, still. It seems like we are both two great suns orbiting one great planet.  This planet represents our parents and our children.   This is the poem I wrote this weekend and shared with the wife yesterday.

on two great suns

Two great suns, once there were.
once in orbit near a great sphere,

Attracted they were one to another.
This then what of the attraction.

Little in common had they then,
even less now so they find.

This attraction what does, it hold?

This distance required, as the sun's glow brighter,
a greater distance, in their orbit sphere.

This the fear then he feels,
that destruction may come,
at a smaller orbit, as their strength and bond
glow brighter.

Daily he checks, this then the dance.
Weaving in and out, each other's sphere.

This many years now, then have they danced.
The choice than to continue, this covenant path.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/12/on-two-great-suns.html

#Note this paper was written entirely today for this class.  The poems and videos were preexisting by I wrote the paper entirely today in one sitting

On faithful disbelief

Richard Feynman stated somewhere, and I have lost the reference, that the most difficult person to teach science to is a religious person.  In his philosophy of science, the most powerful tool is to learn to disbelieve.

It is hard for a religious person to disbelieve.  We have the “I know narrative in our church.”  We teach our children from a very young age that “I know” and that it is important to know. It gets ingrained and the truly faithful person always knows.  The most faithful then become bishops and stake presidents.  The strongest “I know’s” then become the Seventies, Apostle, and Prophets. When you know you fail to investigate your truth. 

Along come people who are comfortable with not knowing but have sufficient belief.  They first investigate their disbelief and then they begin to investigate their errors. This happened to faithful church scholars in the 1960s. They then discover that Joseph Smith did indeed allow Negro priesthood ordination.  This knowledge then filters up to the “I Knows” and then one dares to pray about it, to discover if his belief was correct and then, to find a method to confirm his errors to the remainders of the “I knows”.

You see this same narrative in Richard Bushman's work when he begins to reteach the “I Knows” about seer stones. It has taken some time but the, “I knows” are beginning to teach about the seer stones again.

It takes time to learn to be a faithful disbeliever.  It is hard and time-consuming and there are no rewards, there is only rejection. Most take the path of least resistance and leave the church. It is hard to be a faithful disbeliever.

I hope you have the courage to stay and to be a faithful disbeliever.  This church really needs you if the restoration is to continue.

Richard Feynman On religion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Qdl6Gbx0k

On God being with me in Hell

So I was sitting at my work station changing out LEDs on a display panel. They say you can tell what matters to a man when he is thinking when he has free time to think. Changing led’s on a panel is not difficult and it requires little mental energy. I was thinking about the essay on Telling God to go to Hell. I was wondering if God would go to hell for me. Was he with Corrie ten Boom, the Nazi Concentration Camp, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Nazi Jail and his martyrdom?

I remember an old poem of mine, I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.mymuzes.org/…/on-being-like-job-and-on-return-if…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_ten_Boom

on telling God to go to Hell

Has there been a time when you just wanted to tell God to go to Hell? After 40+ years of deep study of church history and doctrine, I was very unhappy with my "church experience" I would come home from church services so hungry and craving more, more of what I was uncertain but I needed more. I remember taking out the garbage one night and cursing God in my unhappiness. When in 2015 my wife was in end-stage cancer and my daughter was not speaking to me. I just wanted to tell God to go to Hell.

I have since learned that my Heavenly Parents just wanted to be with me, in a relationship. I sure my Heavenly Mom wanted to cuddle with me, but in my anger and shame, I was pushing them both away. I have found some peace now as I serve my Earthy Father and my daughter has forgiven me for causing the distance between us.

Maybe the answer comes in the service I offer and not in the answer's I demand.

"I gave You my heart
So, tell me, why is it broken?
If You're the healer,
Why are my wounds still open?
What do You want from me?
Are You sure You want everything?
Even my honesty?
Even my honesty
Even my honesty"

"I know You've promised that You won't leave me broken
But right now I need to know You're here in this moment
Why won't You answer me? (Answer me)
What do You want from me?
When all I can bring You is my doubt and my anger
You'd still rather fight with me than let us be strangers
Is that what You want from me? (Want from me)
The way You get close to me
Are You sure You want all of me?
All of my agony?
All of my questioning?
Even my honesty?"

Jason Gray - "Honesty"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aLj-Cz7aog&fbclid=IwAR2wvTrcBOVL5du3Glw1pUs2CLTtG6czlp0k6fNbOLR2z1qcEccTubVv1fE

Why we build temples.

We as Mormons build temples for a very unique reason. The first modern temple built was at Kirtland Ohio.  It was built not as a place to worship a god but a place for our Heavenly Parents to be with their children.  The knew the world they had created was a dirty place.  It was a world full of sin and degradation. They knew, when they sent our first earthly parents, Adam and Eve, that it would be so.  It was part of their plan, for us to learn, to be like them.  Still, they wanted to be with their children again. So they ask Joseph to built them a temple, where they could be with their children again and anew.

In our first fifty years, we built very few chapels and churches. We build four temples, and The Endowment House and a Social Hall before we ever build a church.  We inherited one chapel, from the United Brethren in England when the entire congregation joined the Mormon church.  This was quickly sold to fund their immigration to Utah. It seems we preferred to worship in open-walled boweries, similar to our park pavilions today.

Today, because of a global pandemic we have lost the use of our chapels and temples.  We now worship in our homes, like our ancient parents did, in Isreal. We know not how long this will continue. We have been stripped of all the programs that form a religion and we are left with our family, the sacrament, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I hope we remember this time, and teach our children of these times, and remember what true religion should be.  “ Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27

R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion" (LIVE @ MTV's 10th Anniversary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAjC7BSqAA&fbclid=IwAR0DCmXgoccQjabQUJrsoE7oKv3j5-9ibO3U69IllVNskC8caamnVzA1sLY

my grandfathers castle

My grandfather built me a castle.
It sits on a small hill
overlooking our town.

You may ask why
he built It.

He wanted a home,
for God, to come,
for  God, to be,
with his children.

He argued with the prophet.
Such beautiful carvings they were,
patterned after the highland cattle,
of his native Scotland.

They could be used to shape the molds,
to poor metal into and to create the cattle,
the ones below the baptismal font,
in the castle.

Remove the hair,

from the Scottish Highland Cattle, was the command. 

This he refused to do,

so the task to remove the fur,

was given to another.

My family has often fought with and for the prophets.
It seems we are rescued every generation,
each choosing again to renew those promises.

Maybe that is why he, they, built it.
I know it reminded my momma of her promises.
It reminds me of mine.

I live my life daily, below a castle.
the one my grandfather built,
to house a god.

My grandfather Alexander McQueen carved the cattle, to shape the molds, to create the sculptures, that carried the first  Baptismal Font in the Logan Utah Temple.   Family legend has it that he fought with Brigham Young over the design for the cattle.  He carved them after the LongHorn Scottish Cattle. They were beautiful but because of the nature of mold creation, they could not be used for that purpose. Legend has it that Brigham Young hired someone to scrap the hair off the molds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkqO9_GGGuk

On Divorce

Divorce was never something forbidden in the ancient church but it is not to be taken lightly.  With marriage comes a commitment to a spouse, and when children are born or adopted, this commitment extends to the children.  These commitments also extend to our parents and siblings.  We are bound together in one huge covenant relationship.

My parents were married for nearly 50 years.  My mother passed away about 7 years ago and my father still feels a deep loss at her death.  I have often wondered how they sustained this relationship.  My father is rather emotionally immature and he has a limited education.  Early in their marriage, when I was still in high school, my father had affairs with 3 ladies at work.  My mother never spoke of these to me, I sensed a wave of deep anger in her but I never understood the source of this anger.  I do not know why my mother stayed but I do know that they worked on their marriage and improved their relationship.

Maybe part of the answer to the question is the castle, sitting on a hill overlooking our mountain valley.  Some call it the Logan Temple but I always saw it as a castle that protected our town.  I and my brother were sealed to my parents in this castle when I was a month old.  I had just undergone emergency surgery that preserved my life.

My parents never attended church, but whenever I passed this castle my mom reminded me that we were a forever family because of the promises she made there to me, my siblings, and my father.

Again, I do not say that divorce is never necessary, I have had at least one grandmother who found divorce was needed, due to spousal abuse.  What I say is if a way can be found to preserve the marriage it can benefit the wider family relationship.

I have found, with experience, and time, that my parents, siblings, wife, and children have been blessed by mom’s choice to stay with my father and to honor her temple covenants.

A portion of a paper I wrote for a BYU-I class on The Articles of Father

This week we were studying Article 6. 

She thanked me for the blessing today

My best friend ask me for a priesthood blessing on Memorial Day. We have struggled together these last few years. We struggle with our demons together. I received a short text from his wife. She thanked me for the blessing.  I felt inspired to write and send her this small poem.  I hope you enjoy it too.


She thanked me for the blessing today,
She, the one who believed not in god.
was it the one to her husband,
or the one she received today?
She thanked me for the blessing today

Memorial Day 2020 and the Coronavirus

This is Confederate Corner, a portion of Arlington National Cemetery set aside for the reburial of Confederate Soldiers. These men died believing they were defending their wives and homes and rights as American Citizens, life, liberty, and the right to choose their leaders.

Many of them believed in the southern cause, most just wanted to live and love and own their own homes and property. They thought they were defending themselves in a War of Northern Aggression. Arlington Nation Cemetery is built on Robert E. Lees Virginia plantation. This cemetery is built on land overlooking Washington D.C. on land his wife inherited from her grandfather George Washington. As a needful war measure it was seized by the Union Army at the start of the war to prevent it being used as a place to plant cannon overlooking The District of Columbia, and the nation’s capital. The Union Army began to bury its dead, first in the rose garden and then in the surrounding plantation, as a way to ensure the Lee’s could never again enjoy using their home. There were many court battles over the years, but the courts finally forced the Federal Government to purchase the land from Robert E. Lee’s Children. In the early 20th century a movement began to reconcile a nation, divided by the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression. One of these early movements was to raise funds to rebury The Confederate Dead in a place of honor at Arlington. Men in fox holes do not fight to defend their nation. They fight to defend men in foxholes, living beside them. We now live in a time of great division, like the nation was deeply divided before the War to Free the Slaves, as Lincoln lead the war to become. Can we now work to defend our homes and families? To defend them from this virus. We now live in foxholes, before this war we called them homes. We now work, and feed our families, and worship our God in our homes. As you remember to defend your neighbors in their foxholes, take a moment to think of Confederate Corner and let it give you the strength to help heal our land, today.

On the Duality of God

I wonder if God is a duality, both male and female?

I was browsing through the 1917 Jewish translation of the Book of Genesis when I came across this scripture and It started me thinking about the nature and the gender of God.  I wondered if Adam and Eve were a duality before she was removed from him.

The thought occurred to me that Eve was removed from Adam because he could not see her.  He could see that all of the other animals had partners.  He could not see his partner within himself.

I wondered if that is why I married, to seek the partner that could be within me. Is this what men seek when they seek union with their other half, of themselves? The spouse they choose to live with and share their time with and create a new life with?

This led to the creation of this poem.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2017/07/on-first-bren-family.html

The Book of Bereishit (Genesis): Chapter 2

20-24 ... "but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And HaShem G-d caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which HaShem G-d had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.  And the man said: 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.' Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

JPS Electronic Edition, based on the 1917 JPS translation, Copyright © 1998 by Larry Nelson

Tobe less is more

To be grateful is,
To be grateful for.

To be less is more
To be more I seek.

Yet is it more?

The more I become,
The less I am.

The less I am,
the more I become.

T'is this I seek
To be less, then more..

The more I am,
The more I seek.

The more I seek,
The less I become.

Till then I am,
Tobe no more.

I will seek,
Then less of more

To then I become,
All the more.

Steven Basset
April 2015

On the baser instincts

Sometimes then,
they do heal,
the relationship.

It is a crime now,
A crime I saught,
all of my life to prevent.

I then failed in my task.

This then the women,
in my life,
suffered,
then this crime.

You would think I could prevent,
this then, this crime,
this day.

I could not prevent it.

Why must this crime,
this than now, and then
haunt our family,
Know I not now.

Could I heal the breach,

Could I stop the pottery,
from falling and breaking.

I could not then,
I cannot now.

Then on to heal the breach.

Four generations of women,
then in my family,
have suffered this crime.

Why must men then commit this crime?
It haunts us still.

It changes the family, then,
as it changed us now.

Why then desire, then so strong,
in men to procreate,
that they then suffer,
this crime on their woman.

Must life continue at the price,
of damaging the woman,
the seed of the next generations?

Still even being born sterile,
I feel the drive to share my genes,
to another generation.

It is said men think only,
of food and sex.

This then is it true?

Can we not then learn to govern these baser instincts?

Then to heal the generations,
and to create anew,
a family in peace and joy.

On the Redemption of Lucifer.

He was thinking about Lucifer,
this his child,
Lucifer.

Lucifer, the son of the morning,
or was he,
the son of the mourning.

How then to redeem Lucifer?
This then his child.
The son of the mourning.

He would if a way could be found.
Redeem Lucifer.

How many times had he walked?
in the Heavens,
in the morning dew,
with Lucifer by his side.

He loved all of His creation,
but the children held a special place,
in his heart.

It was Lucifer who caused,
this great loss.

Lucifer the author of his own,
damnation.

It was Lucifer who placed himself,
beyond redemption,
of God the Father,
of all creation.

How then to mourn, the loss?
This then day of Lucifer.

The son of the mourning.

Still know I not then

From whence,

doeth it come.

Come'th it does,

To now and then

Then and now

come'th it still

still to my heart 

come'th it now

Still doeth it come

To'be quiet my soul

My soul to besteel

Doth quiet it now.

To reveal is to hide

Remaith their, still.

April 4 2016

Facebook

On staying true to the ones

I made love to one woman,
maybe two.

I have kissed one woman,
maybe too.

In my mind's eye, sometimes,
I confuse the two.

One gave me life,
one shared that life,
when the first had done,
all she could do.

It is said sons marry,
when their mom's,
abandon all hope,
of reclamation.

To change a life,
is the work,
of a lifetime.

So this task,
do two women,
share.

In time this man may learn,
to appreciate these women,
two.

On the gifts they now share

There is a gift,
she then gave,
him.

Was it her death,
or is it his life.

They have traveled together,
these many years.

She swore to marry not,
one of his father's sons.

No one to marry,
could he then find?

To this then the date,
Swimming the first,,
her greatest then fear,
or was it?

Then the marriage,
then the loss,
no children to come.

Then the gift, from the handmaiden,
who loved them all.

Then the place filled, with the missing,
who was not missing?

Then comes cancer,
and the gardener, and the cure.

Now three children have they,
and the miracle he brought,
of life, they then share.

Then the gift,
life with his father,
while she cares for the children.

How to repay such a gift,
such a life, now then spared,
for the love of him, and her,
and them, do they share,

The gifts.

On being like Job, and on the return

If I were lead to hell,
Not of my accord,
Would you be with me?

Would you hold my hand,
And sing sweet lullabies,
Of comfort to me.

Thou knowest the end,
And the beginning,
and what must I learn,

Being driven to Hell,
Like Job, or Virgil.
Thou standest by me,
As a true friend.

Of free will then comes the choice,
But not the consequences.
Never alone, am I,
Or far from thee,
And thy thoughts.

(Inspired from reading of "The Sparrow", Maria Doria Russell,1996)
the best I can document this poem i 06-26-2016 When I included it in a draft of a sacrement meeting talk I prepared.

the scares that remain

There are scares on my arms,
self-imposed scares,
these kinds of scares,
maybe the most difficult to carry.

They are from a time of darkness,
when I felt no joy, just sorrow,
and no light.

Now there is light, they remain,
as a memory, and a reminder,
to find joy amidst darkness,
and despair.

On the memories of a mac se\30

There it sits, in the room
in front of me, and the tv.

Of what use is it to me,
now.

It sat for so many years,
in the closet, full of my memories.

It was old when first, I used it.
to transcribe the memories,
the first memories.

Now 25 years later, it still holds,
the memories.

I see it, I fear it.
the memories it holds, still.
This then, now it's losing its ability,
to share.

What do we do with the memories?

Having not used it for a decade,
its memories return to haunt me.

Contained within the shell, a truth,
but no warmth then it shares.

The truth then remains, why
it has remained unused,
for a decade after its memories,
were transferred to another one. still.

Now it remains a hollow shell.
Advanced for its age, now lifeless and still.

Do I keep it for its memories or my memories?

On the other side of the room remains the radio.
It too was in advance of its age, once.
This long before my birth.

It had been really old at my birth.
It always seemed to be present in our home.
It was never used though long remembered.

For what use does one keep a  Phillips AM radio,
circa 1935?

It is of little use now,
years ago, having lost the ability
to temper its sound.

Its sits now on my desk,
it too full of memories now.

A few years ago I removed its power cord.
I feared that if used, its aged cord,
would burn the house down.

Now I keep it too, for the memories.
My sister never understood why,
it played modern music.

This in the day when am radio was still rock music,
and not political satire.

Now it remains silent,
not only because of the power source,
but also for lack of content, in the air.

Will the day come, when I too, will be only,
a memory too them?

Like the two white plates that remain, today.
The last memories of my grandparents trip, to Mexico.
Will my children understand the memories, still?

Then on to create, their own, memories.

Still to dream, and then to share, will come,
their memories.

on seeing her picture, for the first time

I see her picture now,
I felt her presence then.

She lived but a short life.
A life that made such a difference,

Why she died we know not now,
How she died is more apparent,

But the influence she left
And the difference she made,
How then do we measure?

She was the topic of conversation,
For years, though often unsaid.

I would visit her father on weekends.

He was helping me to become a man.

She had helped him to become a man.

Her death had transformed him,
And now he would transform other lives.

Her death would ripple down, through time,
To transform many lives,
To train a generation of leaders, in this life.

I am not foolish enough to believe God wanted this.
I could not worship a god who was so cruel.
He did choose to use her loss,
To create a gain, and now my life,
Is transformed by her loss

on the second marriage

she was younger then,
younger then I am now,
when Jamsie she married.

She had been younger, still,
on that first marriage.

She had been a single mom, of a sort.
her momma having taken the last-child
with her on her death
grandma finished the raising,
of a brother.

She then had married, an older man.
nine years her senior,
he was 30 and she but 21.

so together they raised the younger brother.
then came ten children and his early death at 60.

I have seen the letter,
the one to the children,
explaining her choice, to marry Jamesie.

Sometimes in life, we make choices.
to live with a hard choice is preferred,
to living alone, or apart.

I have been told, it was not a good marriage.

I have made hard choices.
To love my mom,
to rebuild our relationship,
continually.

To have planted the garden,
to bring the cure.

Now I live with my dad,
and visit my wife on the weekends.

It is better to visit on the weekends,
at our home, then to visit once a year,
in the cemetery.

So I understand grandmas, choice,
to marry Jamsie.

I hope someday my children and grandchildren,
understand, the hard choices,
I have made, to bless their lives.

on faith and the gardener

Tomorrow he would start the garden,

The one in the garage,

I had no hope that it would cure,

I had hope enough that it would heal,

My brokenness, our brokenness 

The brokenness in her, in us, in the family.

At the least, it would return her appetite and

Help ease the transition in the next few months. 

The Gardener was angry with me, angry that I was making plans,

To live our life, the children’s lives, without her.  

He had the faith, not I.

He had seen the miracle, before and would see it again.

This then was his task, to cure her cancer and my lack of faith.

Time is past the miracle has come, and I am grateful for the Gardner 

And how he restored my wife’s heath and my faith in the cure. 

to then my other Mom

You then are the one,
the one I reach back for,
for then the earliest memories.

For the love, and the warmth,
and the need to be loved,

I have no visible memories of these moments,
only shadows of our time together.

You moved away before I was three,
yet still I share the shadows, of the memories.

It is these memories, that make possible,
my love and attachment, to my wife and children.

My first mom was young,
growing still, herself.

Dad was a challenge,
growing still himself.

With dad and my brother, mom had her hands full.
So you stepped up and carried the plate,
for the first three years,
because that is what sisters do.

Then your own life you needed to start.
this now I have come to understand.

But the shadows of the memories,
gave me a place to start,
a base to learn to love.

Through the years,
I tried to get you to see,
that I was your first child.

Mom loved you too.
She had been happy to share her family,
over the years.

Mom having been born,
a year and a half, before, your birth.
Yet you were twins, sharing the same soul.

Thus then, in the end,
you mourned your unborn child,
never seeing the many you raised.

I too have mourned my unborn child,
but I have loved the others.

This then, my daughter's oldest brother.
My wife could have been a single mom
when first we met.

Having been offered this child, by the handmaiden.
He was then offered to another family, to be their joy.

Then came the one who could have been my first son,
but grandpa loved him first.

But then the handmaiden offered us,
our first child, and what a joy she was.

Then 8 years later the second joy.
This then the gift, that filled the hole,
that was not there.

So now both of you are gone,
my first and second moms.

Still, I carry the memories, of you both.
The base of love, built by the second,
and the dance of love with the first.

This then, I use to build a place of love,
for my children, born and unborn.

This then a Father tobe

This then a father, tobe,
This then a desire, then a hope.

To the one who then,
the children then had

Many she then discarded,
this then an inconvenience.

He then desires one of the inconveniences.
To convince her then to maintain,
and to share, the next inconvenience,
this then was his task.

This then the conspiracy, he shared with,
the other portion, of his soul.

He had joined this portion of his soul,
in holy matrimony.

This, when she knew no offspring,
would she have, maybe?
Before they knew or could suspect,
his sterility.

Now then how to conspire to obtain,
one of the inconveniences?
This then was their shared, task.

Thus they did then obtain, an inconvenience.
To create a story, this then was their next task.

To hide the truth, from the inconvenience.
For to love the handmaiden then,
must be the desire of the inconvenience.

This then was his task.
to teach the children,
to love the handmaiden,
and her choice.

This then is his lifetime goal.

the one who almost was

Thus then, the one who almost was ...

Children I then do have, thus now ...

Thus then to have a grandchild, too.

Years ago one almost was born

This one lost before it became ...

How I would have loved,
to help  raise this child.

Young my child was then

as my mom was once too.

When born was I.

Maybe someday, another will come.

For now it is enough, children to have.

Yet someday.grandchildren tobe.

On memories of the early years

I have no bad memories of the early years.

My friend Jared had memories,
bad memories of those early years.
Being handcuffed to his crib.

I then seek my memories,
the early memories.

I see grandmas,
three then I had, four if you remember
great-grandma.

Maybe she is my earliest, memory.
In-home, in Preston Idaho.
A kitchen and a pantry,
a promise of a cookie,
then to be given a Fig Newton.

Fig Newton's are not bad cookies.
They are a prune-like mixture,
surrounded by a sweet breading.
But chocolate cookies, they are not.

How is it that my earliest memory,
is one of disappointment.

I was loved, I knew I was loved.
I was just ignored by my mother,
in a state of perpetual neglect.

She was young, growing up herself.
One of the younger ones in her family home.
Ignored by her alcoholic father.
Only sharing affection, when drunk.
she then shunned physical affection.
This then returning, memories,
bad memories.

My earliest  memories, then too,
of being loved.
first then my moms sister, Nancy.
Until the age of 3, she was my mom.
People believed I was her child.

This then no lack of love,
experienced I.
Fortunate then am I,
that I can love and be loved,
by others.

I was always loved,
by them,
my moms brothers and sister.
One pursued adoption,
Thankfully she grew with me,
and in her thirties,
she became the mom I needed.

So grateful I am, that no bad memories have I, of the early years.
Just the dance, with mom, she reached out, and my retreat.
I then reached out, then her retreat.
In the end, the dance was resumed,
each ready for the other and the bonding complete.

On snail sex

Why do it this way?

In the open, in danger,

out of the protection, they carry.

Male and female, are they both.

They could reproduce, by themselves.

This, then the choice, 
They make, not.

Then the race is on,

to share the sperm,

and not the egg.

Adam was once like them,

male and female,

until Eve was removed,

to benefit them.

Now it seems we like Adam,

and the snails seek union, too.

To share the most, intimate of acts.

In utter darkness, and nakedness.

To simulate the act by one's self,

does not fully satisfy.

We like Adam, and Eve.

Seek union, again

This then, together, anew.

On being a single parent

How many times,

had he wished,
she were a single parent,

when first, they met.

She had been offered that first baby

their babies older brother

He would have been a young child,

When first, they met.

Not ready, she was,

No husband and no prospects.

So the baby became a gift, to another.

So, on the weekends,
they stole the other babies
niece and nephew, they were,

and a day care center,

she began.

This then while they waited,

for their  babies.

Still he felt a longing,

and a desire,  that a single parent,
she had been, when first they met.

On their first loss, together

How to mourn
The ones that never were

Lost where two ,almost,
when first they wed

The possibilities

Possible, this he knew
he'd considered it for years.

still to consider the possibility,
is the more difficult,
when real they become,

When the first, 

She informed, him.

His eyes where opened, half,
or half-closed.

Still not considered,
it was he,
and not her.

To be born not fatherly,
yet desire their the still.

When the time was past,
Two were offered,

a gift to be shared.
To fill the gap left,

by the possibilities.

No more, to mourn, 

the ones that never were.

Facebook
January 19, 2015 at 9:59 PM

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

a letter, written in response to a facebook post from Ken Zabriskie 12/28/2019


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Feek
She lost her battle with cancer about the time wife won hers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcpjSMmWUDw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR04W5WItn3ygHTmI5PdIjFEvPtRy0DYA8vMYwecB2ZSopVMWxRqvmeI4dY

Kenny

In the spring of 2015, I nearly lost my bride to gastric cancer.  She had this cancer most of our married life.  Gastric cancer, in our case, was a slow burner.  It took nearly 20 years to catch fire.  When I would question my wife about its progress, she assured me it was not a problem, their became a time when she came to me and said it was now a problem.  She had been given six months to live.  She chose no chemotherapy or x-ray treatments.  She wanted to keep this private in our family.   To use this time to build memories for her children to carry the remainder of their days.  I was filled with anger and rage and shame.  So many confusing thoughts and memories. The comfort God offered me, was the poetry. This is a gift I adore yet never desired to form.

I feel the pain and suffering and joy in your post.  I wonder what gifts God has given with you as you have traveled this journey and felt this pain.  I don’t think God gave my wife cancer to develop my poetry.  I could not worship a God who was so cruel.  I feel that he offered me this give a gift, to help support, my journey.  I nearly ended my life one day when the pain was too much.  I am glad I did not and I see the joy my wife and I know enjoy with her recovery.

You may ask how this cure was possible and I have no explanation.  Like the miracle of Jesus curing a man blindness with mud, her cancer was cured with an herbal recipe, that has never worked since.  But this I am grateful for, her health and the gift of the poetry.

May I then share this poem with you about the experience, in hope that you may discover the gifts god offered you with your longing a desire to be the ones who are gone.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/10/the-gardener-and-cure.html

On the creation of poetry

So, what we must do then,
to create poetry?

Milton lost three wives, a Kingdom and a Republic.
Eugene England received a letter from Bruce R. McConkie,
the whole world read, while still in the post.
Carolyn Lynne Pearson lost her covenant partner to love and AIDs. 
I nearly lost my wife, due to gastric cancer.

Can one desire to be a poet?

Is poetry like a seed, resting in your soul?
Mine would never have come forth but to battle with my shame,
and the possible loss of my wife.

How then do two great suns grow brighter and their orbits wider,
as they strengthen their relationship?

Tobe and influence those, in their orbital sphere.

When away I think nothing but of her.
When together I fear the loss of the connection, with her.

This then the one I have no commonalities with is the very center of my soul.

Then this remains the question, how to strengthen this bond,
as we grow brighter, and our orbits increase?

Is it then the task, of poetry?

The first poets, in Israel, became the prophets.
The psalms then they sang, and wrote, and prayed.

How then now, to be a poet and a prophet, as in ancient Israel.
This, then to be family-centered and church-supported.

In the end, all I have are the children, 
and the wife, and the memories, 
we then create, anew.

This then I am told “Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; 
out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”
William Butler Yeats.

Poetry history love and shame

What of the stories and the poetry

Once when love was young, one child he had.
This then one young child.

He wanted her to know the stories,
the ones that made, him and her and them.

He prepared the journals, the ones he kept
and honored and adored.

He copied and typed and edited,
with plenty of footnotes, like he had learned in school.

As he read and reread them he feared them.
There was no love there, between the pages, of the journals.

He had spent so many years learning to love and to live and to forgive.
One hundred years from now the grandchildren would read,
the carefully crafted, and footnoted and spelling checked journals,
where love was not noted within?

He put them carefully away for another day.

Twenty years later cancer came back, like a raging storm.
She had promised him that it was not a big deal, she lied,
it was a big deal.

Six months, they had left, maybe less.
How then to live a life without her?

The gardener was busy, working in the garage, to find a solution.
He was working two jobs, to fund the solution.

He was filled with anger, and shame, and regret.
The gardener and his wife and children were enjoying a campfire.

Theirs was no longer a world of his, so then came the poem.

You see poetry was never a gift, he adored.
Yet you ask, what of John Milton, Carol Lynn Pearson, and Eugene England.
These then were the exception.

What then makes him see himself as a poet?

The pain and anger and guilt and shame must go somewhere.
The toxic levels of fear and regret,
these must go if only to survive another day, so the poem came.

At first, they were not good, he dared not share the guilt and shame.
Like puss from a great wound, it sprinkled forth, to release the pain.

You see poetry, like life, remains unfinished.
The story to be completed by the reader.
The love, the hate, the anger, the shame,
become a shared story with the reader.

No carefully crafted footnotes, no carefully researched and accurate history,
just the guilt and love and hate and shame splattered on the page.

One hundred years from now, when you read the stories, I hope you feel,
the love and adoration and lessons,
he learned, from the poetry.

Ode to the Poem

You are like a tiny seedling from a mighty pine tree, sitting fallow for years, on the forest floor, waiting for that majestic fire to set it you free.

I wonder where you come from, little poem. This piece of magic, this gift from God.  You sat silent, for years at the center of my soul, bursting forth at that great fire, then at the coming death of the one I love and adore.

You were the first one to come to me, I never longed for you, as I longed for the birth of my children. Yet here you are, my first creation. I was sitting on the back porch of our home when you first came to me. The family was sitting in the back, around the fire. Enjoying a laugh or two. I struggled to see how I fit, into their world.  Always at work was I, seeking the funds to keep us afloat.

The Gardner was returning joy to the ones, who's laughter I had not heard, in years. It was good to hear her laugh. Cancer would consume her soon but the children would be left with the memories from the Gardner.  He had come to bring the cure, but joy supplied him also.

You came with your gift. Laying fallow at the center of my soul.  It consoled me, supplied the strength to continue.  Years it would take to find my place, in their lives again.  The anger and guilt and shame came out in the poetry. First to Facebook and then to select close friends.  Then to the one, I loved. This then to return to intimacy long lost. I am thankful for your gift of poetry.

The gift God gave my children

Sterility, the gift God gave my children

What is the gift God is giving my children?

Once when our marriage was young,

My wife asked me to help her to make a baby,

At this task I failed, though many times I tried.

This left and the empty spot, in my soul.

This left a drive to serve to restore.

Children came into and nestled, in this space,

For a while. 

Three have remained, and I serve them well.

Still, I ask myself, what of the children,

If we had created our own.

I shy away from this question now,

I shudder to think of what their life could have been,

If I were not sterile.

I still feel the drive to create.

This poetry then fills this space.

This and the children will be sufficient, for now.

Maybe in the eternities, Bonnie and I will create more.

But for now, I have the children, and poetry.

This blesses us now.