Prodigal Daughter

Once a King or Queen of Narnia

I’ve shared this piece before on my other Substack but since I have devoted The Inkling’s Outpost to my original works of poetry, prose, and artwork, I thought it made sense to move it over here as well. I wrote this poem after reading through The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time. To my shame I was 30 years old before I ever read Narnia, but I loved it no less for that fact. Possibly I loved it more because I had gone thirty years without realizing that I, too, was a King of Narnia longing for home and Aslan. I cried while I was writing this…to be honest.

Slowly the crowd trickles away

above, in wind, the branches sway.

Long she stands, thoughts of past

when she played with siblings last.

Of other worlds they’d often speak

a belief once held, now grown weak.

Slowly she went to her room

Pondering her own coming doom.

There in hotel bed she lay

wishing to hear someone say,

“There is more, dear Susan, than you know.

A place where golden apples still do grow.

There your family waits for you,

on the lawn among garden’s dew.”

“Still room for me?” she said aloud.

She shed deep tears, head she bowed.

And as she cried for God to hear

there came a lion’s roar so near!