Dedicated To Dr. Stephen Gould
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Professing A Portrait
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Bossard was a homely house out of a tale. Old, it was.
How many of its chapters could be read between the clapboards?
I advanced through a parlor with a piano no one dared play.
I found him in the nest of small offices pushed into the back.
Alarmed to see me, he placed a call. On the wall,
Hemingway stared back at me. Evaluating?
An explanation given, Dr. Gould sighed. Then he became himself.
Transcending my transcript, he showed me his palette of colorful opinion.
He even uncorked a corny joke. He warned me: “Don’t be a stranger.”
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On the far side of my diploma, I entered President Gould’s office
To write a check. Frankly, this felt alien to both our natures…staged.
The office was in the eaves of a newly renovated Jubilee Hall.
Now renamed, the poetry of “Jubilee” was muted
By a moniker entirely prosaic.
Decades of achievement had left Stephen decorated but not decorous.
From either side of a desk as imposing as an altar,
We playfully shooted the breeze. An on the spot, ad hoc fraternity,
We were just two jubilant delinquents acting out in old Jubilee Hall.
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As if I was a stranger, at times I returned incognito.
Ditching my everyday mufti, my ego muffled, I walked into the woods.
I remembered the seminarians who practiced their sermons there,
Out back by the river, a place where I recited my poems.
Leaving the trees once again for the chapel,
I liked to think Stephen Gould, and so many others
Were on a lookout from the windows of Old Main.
Perhaps they looked directly at me, while I stood looking for them.
I keep a faith in them, and they in us. We alumni keep a faith in one another.
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Steven Golden
June 1st thru June 3rd, 2026
Green Valley, AZ
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