Susan’s Return
A poem I wrote recently, inspired by Susan Pevensie and her life after Narnia. Mostly because I’ve always wanted more of her story:
Her stooped shoulders bear the cost
Of memories, of grief, of loss
Her soul has turned to stone from frost
Then her thoughts turn to him
On the darkest night she wept
It’s like she lived through an eclipse
The stone shattered end to end
When he lived again
For once she knelt, crowned a queen
Her arrows true, nearly unseen
He stood with a golden gleam
Where she was meant to be
For past the lantern, once she tread
She changed back to a girl instead
An exile, just better off than dead
Cast on forgotten seas
So roots she grew, on shifting sands
She learned to love those foreign lands
To dance, to dream, and to hold hands
And to treasure other things
She turned her face, and built a wall
She wouldn’t think of it at all
couldn’t bear to let the shields fall
As the losses compounded on
But when she’d tell children’s tales
There, her careful defenses failed
Her stories took a different trail
Of gentler days long gone
She sits, facing out into the night
Her tired limbs give up the fight
“Remember me” she asks the gleam of light
“I still remember you”
And there he stands at an open door
The pain and doubt of moments before
Disappear as though they never were
And with him, she walks through