Rapunzel Revisited

Part I

Night's my time; it's always been.

In that stillness, all alone,

I find the thoughts that are my own –

not those another mind has given.

Mine is the deep and silent hour.

My parents gave me into care

of another, cruel 'mother'.

We have no blood nor love to share.

She closed me in this Tower.

In the daylight I can see

from my window every tree,

the orchards fruiting merrily

but never to be plucked by me,

the lonely girl with the long gold hair.

I know she does not value me

except as trophy. I can be

her proof of power. And I see

she likes my long gold hair.

She uses them, these long gold locks –

like steps of a ladder, or piled rocks

to climb to my heights. For what she lacks

is her own way to scale the peaks

of thought I reach within this Tower.

She tells me beauty matters, but

my hair's the only claim I've got

to loveliness. 'It won't be cut!'
– my useful, long gold hair.

Part II

As I watched the landscape darken

underneath the moody moon,

I wove from my imagination

ways to travel out, be gone
from the lonely, stony Tower.

And did I let my hair down

for a prince who ventured from the town

and wound my silly heart around

his finger, like my hair?

It's true that I began to long

to join the playful dance and song

I heard so distantly; to throng

with other girls and boys, along

the paths beyond my stone-walled bower.

But it was I who rescued me.

I cut my own locks, breaking free

of her ideas and tyranny.

I left the blighted Tower.

I was not thrown from the window, nor

left out in the wilderness, dirt-poor,

to moan and sigh, and cry some more.

Not I. I marched from the front door,

turned left to town, and breathed the air.

And yes, I met a lovely boy

who fills my heart with lasting joy.

For he is blind, I'm glad to say

to my lack of long gold hair.

(The form is based on Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott', whose circumstances were similar.)

Linked to the Tuesday Platform for 20 Dec. 2016, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.