...not hunting controversy, but I did express some Opinions in this poem. 😉

Susan's Second Adolescence
4/25/23

Of course we don't react the same
When our throne's a broken memory,
And the golden dream vanishes
In the cold grey English morning.
My kind and practical girl,
You wore your shining flowers
With gentleness and grace,
And tried to lead the best you could
While kingdoms sought your hand.
You've been a woman grown before,
And you want to be one among the cobblestones
Just as you were in the forests.
It's just the rules are different here.
Is it abandonment to move forward
Once the door has closed behind you?
Do you paint yourself into a fantasy,
Or make up with battle armor?

VDT Chapter 1
(Clarence)

Eustace blessed with complicated name,
Stodgy and unwieldy and strange —
From the beginning there's hope, just the same.
Light shines in the middle, hidden from you.
Clarence, from Clare, shining and true.
If I told you back then you'd have thought me deranged.

You're snide and scoffing, but lonely, I think
On the pages where we first meet.
You haven't yet been drawn to the brink.
So fond of knowledge, but only when dead;
Pinned down to favor your superior head –
Wild Life will sweep you off your feet.

@silverlily That's lovely — great insights there!  

VDT Chapter 2
A Year and a Day

He set himself a deadline,
Not knowing where it lead–
How wide the world he wandered,
And him the head
Of state.
His country had to wait
On his oath,
But not too long.
He'd plotted his path
With a ship, a hope, a song.

VDT Chapter 3
"Same Old"

They came ashore for a lark
(And it was singing!),
And to dig bare toes into the warm sand,
And relax in the echo
Of a memory ringing.
They should have known how far the land
Could change, over so much time.
Had they not learned that lesson before,
In the harsh schools of Paravel's ruins,
Silent woods, and river dug in gorge?
Lucy and Ed, you came home
To a peninsula made an island.
Why should this island be the same?
But still you hoped for simple joys,
Evoked by a familiar name.

---

VDT Chapter 4
Gatekeeping

Change doesn't come on your schedule,
You see,
You poor man.
We watch you stumble forth
From the door you're meant to guard
To greet a King.
Half-hearted demands about second Saturdays
No longer mean a thing.
The sun blazes on his armor,
While you're in your worst, and shedding stray crumbs.
Will you or nil you, jubilee has come,
Certain and cold as sea-spray
That slaps your face from a picture-frame
You hide in a spare bedroom.
You're in a thoughtless bubble, gatekeeper,
As sure as Eustace Clarence with his hopes of consuls.
Will you listen when reality breaks in?

VDT Chapter 5
Deeper In

The island "does not welcome visitors"
But it is silently waiting.
It is waiting, rich with woods
And distant waterfalls,
And mirror-smooth water brooding.
The others hop to it,
Creating their own bustle,
And drowning out the strange solemnity.
You're unready to work, you'd say,
But also fearful of society.
These jolly folk rewritten in your mind
As "fiends," all ready to lash out:
Kidnappers, uncivilized, who'd threaten
Proper torture for a mere cup of water
Past the lips of a sick man.
Well then, away from their sham
Civilization you go,
Higher and deeper where you are not welcomed,
But at least the island has no voice
To say you nay.
You think you'll spend a restful day
In safety, far from the stupid floating prison.
But still when you are far from them,
You are prisoner to fear.
Even here, the twisted shadows,
Caricatures of your companions,
Haunt you.
The fog around you closes in
And you feel you cannot win,
Cannot rest in safety even now.
You fear that they will set their prow
And sail away, and leave you lost,
And leave you lonely
As you never thought you'd be.
And still, the island waits
To seal your fate.
Somewhere close,
There sounds a giant heartbeat…

VDT Chapter 6

When the Fog Clears

When the fog clears

You find you're in

The steep trench of your personal hell,

Fire-char on its embankments.

When the fog clears

You find that the

Path of descent was so narrow,

You wonder how you ever made it.

When the fog clears

You find you're on

The brink of something darker still,

And strange new threats are moving.

When the fog clears,

Your world is changing:

You've crawled farther outside your frame

Of reference than any mere

Magic picture-frame could shift you,

You've nearly plumbed the bottom

Of the lonely pit within your heart,

And there is one more step

To meet its scaly center.

The world is wilder,

And yet truer,

Than your corkboards of neatly labeled samples

Ever knew that it could be,

Here,

When the fog clears.

VDT Chapter 7
Claws and Water

Sand-scrawling has its disadvantages
When you are trying to write your own story,
And you don't know how to write a story,
And you've only your claws to write with
And compete against the surf.
You're scrambling to show new vantages,
Stripped of all close-held vainglory–
For this monstrous hide can hold no glory–
Wanting only to speak again to your kith,
Even mediated by wet earth.

Then moonlight meets you where it should not be
And charts a jungle path to set you free.

You can finally speak with your tongue of your rebirth
Although it sounds to your own ears like dream or myth.
Another's claws wrote deep in your hide
And stripped you clean til you couldn't hide,
And you were thrown into a well of living water
That un-wrote your fearful story,
Like your sandy faltering script.
Old skin and new heartsong are all you kept.

---

VDT Chapter 8
Deadly Beauty

Glitter and gleam of strangely shining things –
Curses can be beautiful, it seems.
Serpents of the deep shimmer
With vivid rainbow mail,
And golden treasure bares its teeth
Until dazed victims set their sail.

---

VDT Chapter 10
Magic's Mystery

Screw up your courage now, child queen,
For magic is a mazey thing.
It deals in silver and moonlight,
And masks and mirrors, beauty bright.

It whispers lures the world would rue
And tells secrets slantwise but true.
It summons, sings, reveals, and mocks.
It slides between the ticks and tocks.

It drums along to your heartbeat.
It knows what you'd like most to eat.
It stretches out the corridor
And waits behind the last left door.

It sparkles up your hands and spine
And explicates the laws Divine.
But it can be quite joyous, too.
A tale told will kindly haunt you.

It binds up Love by Love's own laws
And lets you hear the hidden paws.
You know not where your journey leads:
What's casting shadows, planting seeds.

---

VDT Chapter 11
Meeting the Magician

He isn't the Tyrant they say he is –
or at least, he isn't now.
What sins a starry exile make
Are only a Star's to know.

He conjures English food for guest,
Cold lamb and peas for tea;
He napped through her little quest,
And governs, it seems, unseriously.

He collects so many wonders
As would widen up your eyes,
And punishes the stubborn blunders
With monopods' surprise.

Still he's a well-intentioned sort,
It doesn't do to whine.
He keeps well with a little sport
His books, his gardens, his red wine.

VDT Chapter 12
The Dark Island

They pushed into the Dark with their eyes wide open.
It swallowed their ship like a long black mouth.
Only pale greasy lights gave their hope any token.

In unnatural Night walked all fears unspoken.
When the scream came they couldn't tell North from South.
They pushed into the Dark with their eyes wide open.

The heavy air by no wind was broken
When they learned why to break their terrible trouth:
Only pale greasy lights gave their hope any token.

Panic swarmed in as fears were spoken.
The distant sun had lost all scouth.
Only pale greasy lights gave their hope any token.

"If ever you'd loved"-- the prayer was spoken
And in flew the light, with a song in its mouth.
They pulled out of the Dark with their eyes wide open,
When the Albatross gave to their hope better token

Chapter 13
The Vigil at the End of the World

Soft purple as the clouds, the island's smell;
But crimson as the sun was the table.
The feast spread out as rich as tale could tell,
And strangely stars shone from past all fable,
When came they to the long-lost sleepers three
Whose hearts beat slow and hair and beards were grown
Past reason, in that low land by the sea:
So near to where the sunrise' bed is known.
The king and friends sat watch in breathing shade
And, fearful, wanted for some secret truth
To come out of the night, til lady bade
Them join the feast, and Mouse put her to proof.
Then gladly they set in beneath her eye,
As starry sire approached with bright'ning sky.

VDT Chapter 14

Table of Hope

The clock turns backwards gently, at the table.

An ancient silver Star's returning, day by day, to youth.

Sunbirds flock to another meal, wailing their wondrous truth.

All sailors would go on, if they were able –

recalled to the hope and glory of yesteryear,

In spite of dragons and sea-serpents and Dark island's fear;

And the last harrowed victim of dreams

Returns him softly to hope of rest.

The Sun shines brighter on their quest

Than it ever has before, it seems.

Chapter 15

Mermaids Underneath

The upside-down kingdom is flowing towards the sky

While the shadow of the ship, like some old monster, passes by.

The knights and lords and ladies in their watery Maying day

Are astounded by our presence and our most peculiar way.

They shake their jeweled fists to see us drawing near,

And when the captain spots them he recalls sirens with fear.

They always breathe a water strange and bright,

Sweet and strong as liquid light.

---

Chapter 16

World's End

They glided, sleepless, through the blazing light,

And drank eachother's health with its rich glow.

No merfolk threatened or pondered their passing now,

As they came to a great shoal of silvered white.

Aslan's own gardens grew upon the seas.

They lengthened days, reflecting back the sun.

All stood in wonder of the blaze of lilies,

Whose adventurous smell makes you wish to leap and run.

The shores of Paradise, it seems, are here!

Hearts are so full men do not need to eat.

There is no room in wonder left for fear,

And only one fine challenge left to meet.

As shallows near, a fey mood takes the King:

He rages like his uncle to fulfill the final quest.

The Lion appears to draw his bitter sting,

And he must say farewell to friend and guest.

This is the end, on the verge of the sunrise.

Our heroes row for home, and a Lamb's soft eyes.