The Minstrel Addresses Her Audience - Six Ways of Looking at a Hero
Megan Arkenberg
Poetry
Fantasy
Would you be more surprised if I told you
they were prince and princess,
royal, beautiful, born in faraway countries
torn apart by war and doomed—
star-crossed—fated to join in love;
or if I told you
they were simpler folk—an innkeeper’s son,
a blacksmith’s daughter, met by chance
at the village well?
Would you think me a liar
if I said his leaving was destiny,
inescapable fate drawing him
into the claws of the dragon—or if I said
he had a choice in the matter, to flee or fight
or stay home with his wife
in their cottage or castle?
And would it sadden you to know
that, though he never came home to her,
she spent her whole life watching,
graying, waiting for him to return—or that
she didn’t?
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Copyright 2008, Megan Arkenberg. All rights reserved. Megan Arkenberg is a writer and poet from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in The Lorelei Signal, A Fly in Amber, Scifaikuest and numerous other haiku and tanka publications. When not writing, she divides her time between music, painting, and editing a small fantasy e-zine, Mirror Dance.
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