When I was 10 the Shirley Temple Storybook show was on TV every Sunday for awhile, and I was a fan. A bit later my parents gave me the storybook itself, a collection of about a dozen famous fables, with fresh illustrations. That was the book that introduced me to the tale of The Wild Swans, The Little Lame Prince, and The Land of Green Ginger, and it reacquainted me with Rapunzel. I loved the book and lost it, and eventually bought an out-of-print copy for my kids, who never enjoyed it like I had. So far none of the grandboys has exhibited any interest either. I may have to reread it to myself.

Rapunzel is still no favorite of mine. I like the part about rapunzel being rampion and rampion being an unfamiliar root vegetable. I appreciate the pregnancy cravings. But I always found the heroine too passive, the hair unbelievable, and the witch gratuitously cruel.

However … who can resist that tower? Sometimes a symbol is too glaring to ignore.

I composed a sonnet on it twenty years ago, and recently revised it into respectability.

The tower stands alone upon a plain,
a solitary pinnacle of stone
without a door. Around it thorns restrain
encroaching sand, in wind as bare as bone.
And high within it dwells a lady, fair
enough in face, enough in attitude,
who never lives a day she loves her hair,
who’s half as likely to be wise as rude.

So probably she’ll be alone forever.
The way is steep and shrieky, and the height
forbidding too. A hero must be clever,
sure of balance, stamina, and sight.
And even if he wins, his vigor proved,
she might grow discontented when she’s moved.