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There Is Always Hope
In Memoriam: Dr. Stephen Gould
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That first day, I sat facing the intimidating poster
Of a master novelist, a Nobel laureate (Hemingway).
I listened to Dr. Gould place the call to ask,
“Who is this?” I hardly knew the answer myself.
At Lakeland, how many times did I walk
In the woods to the river? But an epiphany
Did not flower amidst the trilliums.
It struck near Old Main. I was sitting under a tree
Reading Carl Jung (Psychology and Religion).
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“I know a fair number of people who have to take their experience seriously if they want to live at all. They can only choose between the devil and the deep sea.”
“The devil is at least somewhat heroic, but the sea is spiritual death.”
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That devil beckoned me to write and to recite.
Thus, having gone caving within my cerebellum,
I graduated before the handshake of ceremony.
True, I was also guided by Stephen, carefully so.
If I too walked a corridor of trees to my diploma,
It was largely thanks to his tether and a yank or two.
Inimitably his version of a Renaissance man,
Each classroom was his studio to sculpt a student
With tools of their discipline…until they came to life.
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Decades left him decorated, if not decorous.
That said, he had returned from Japan as a founder,
Just like the Mission House founders of old.
Then, he presided. With one eye on an alien future,
He shepherded his charges into the Lakeland tradition.
We schemed to craft sentences as if they were writs.
We aspired to voice our thoughts in many tongues.
Once, frustrated by my lack of a requisite ability,
He told me, “Steve, there is always hope.” Indeed.
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Steven Golden
May 31st, 2026
Green Valley, Arizona
stevengoldenpoetry 