stevengoldenpoetry

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There Is Always Hope

In Memoriam:  Dr. Stephen Gould

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A half century ago, back in old Bossard Hall,

A homely building long since demolished,

I sat in his office under the intimidating poster

Of a master novelist, a Nobel laureate. 

Wary (scared), a refugee in too many ways,

I listened to him place the call to ask,

“Who is this?”  I hardly knew myself.

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I hoped for a seminal answer to that,

And many more questions besides. 

I had left behind the seminary’s answers,

Leaving before they requested I leave.

At Lakeland, how many times did I walk

In the woods to the river?  But my epiphany

Did not flower amidst the trilliums.

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It struck near Old Main. I was sitting under a tree 

Reading Carl Jung (Psychology and Religion). 

Thus, having gone caving within my cerebellum,

I graduated before the handshake of ceremony. 

True, I was also guided by Dr. Gould, 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. 

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Decades left both he and I decorated and decorous. 

That said, he had returned from Japan as a founder,

Just like the Mission House founders of old. 

He presided.  As  for me?  My epiphany still beckoned,

Unanswered.  Finally, I showed him a poem like an aria. 

Incapable of insincerity, he encouraged my “singing.”

I started taking notes, first from Dickinson, then God.

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Our zeniths reached, we have turned and traveled

Back to our beginnings here.  We are grateful 

For the example of a mentor like Stephen, 

Inimitably his version of a Renaissance man.

Frustrated by my lack of a commensurate ability,

Uncharacteristically patient, he quietly told  me,

“Steve, there is always hope.”  Indeed. 

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Steven Golden

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May 30th, 2026

Green Valley, Arizona