Is Page Object Model linking compatible with Cucumber's Gherkin?

With Test Automation's Page Object Model we link pages together like this:

WebDriver driver = new WebDriver()
HomePage homePage = new HomePage(driver);
LoginPage loginPage = homePage.GoToLoginPage();
WelcomePage welcomePage = loginPage.Login();
etc
etc

The big benefit of this is if the Devs change the homepage so it no longer links to the loginpage, I can update my homepage class and see all the tests I need to update (with errors) before even running a test.

With Gherkin however, each row above would form a separate 'Step' and therefore a separate method. Therefore, how can this linking be done?

Is the only way to place instances of the page object classes (e.g. homePage, loginPage, etc) into a cross gherkin statement persistant store (e.g. like a specflow POCO or 'World')?