Locks of Gold by Maria A. Gardner

They stole from my beautiful garden

The only thing I had left

They took my plant

So I took their young child

To protect her, I locked her in a tall tower

Our home was in the middle of the forest

Her hair was long and golden like the sun

The most beautiful hair in all the land

It hung like a rope to the ground

She called me, Mother and I called her, Daughter

I fed her and clothed her, she sang to me

She would live with me forever

For I will never have a child of my own

One day, the king’s son heard her angelic voice

With her hair, he climbed the tower

He brought her red roses from the garden

He wished to marry her and pledge his love

I waited for him to leave

I grabbed scissors and cut off her hair

She cried when I left her alone in the desert

Her hair, short and jagged

When he called out to her to let down her hair

I lowered the hair I had cut

He climbed to the top, surprised I laughed and pushed him down

He fell upon thorns from the rose bush

Injured, he could no longer see

For year, he wandered the woods

Feeding off berries and leaves

One day, he wandered in the desert

He heard a familiar voice

It was her

She sang and they danced

My final years, I spent alone in the tower

The golden locks of hair, replaced by a rope

The locks of the gold were gone forever

I took my final breath and longed to hear voice one last time