Rapunzel and Persephone

Esther Fisher

Photograph & Poem
2022

Women’s stories are told for them

Their voices taken by a mocking bird

And called out as if it was their truth

Both under their mothers’ watch

Longing for the freedom beyond the walls

Their stories taken and twisted as warning

When all they wanted to do was live

 Rapunzel lived above the clouds

Her hair like a sunbeam from sky to earth

She does not grow her hair for mother

The locks are abused and pulled with every climb

She braids and brushed, taking care

So that one day she can use it to climb

Down from the clouds, down from her tower

Vines grow and bloom, and Rapunzel waits

For the right season

Persephone’s feet were firmly planted on the ground

She follows in her mothers’ footsteps

Flowers blooming in her wake

She wants to run, create fields of wildflower meadows

But mother holds her steady

She says that a flower that grows too quickly

Will be weak in stem and small in flower

So, the only flowers that grow are in her footsteps

Roots anchor deeper, and Persephone waits

For the right season

Mother and daughter clash

Shears cut through green and golden stalks

The Golden Fleece falls

The pomegranate splits

The season of change has come

Rapunzel sits in rest at the base of a crumbling tower

She is a pixie cut girl with the reflections of locks in wheat

She has her feet planted firmly on the ground

Wanting to grow flowers instead of hair

Rapunzel is happy with the freedom her garden brings

Persephone sits in rest in her Underworld garden

She is a wild girl with vines and flowers clinging to her dress

She had found her sunlight underground

Growing flowers to her every whim

Persephone is happy with the freedom her garden brings

Rapunzel and Persephone have tea in the garden

Mortal and Goddess, they toast to their freedom

Behind them, the tower is overgrown with woody vines

Purple, lilac, and lavender flower bloom over the stones

Some flowers only grow with the help of others

The strength of the tower

The creeping, climbing vines

A symbiotic relationship for both women

To bloom.

This flower trellis is in Grass Market in Edinburgh. It is right below Edinburgh Castle so you get this lovely view of the magnificent stone structure softened by the pretty purples and winding movement. For me, to see such flowers in April in Edinburgh was weird because I didn’t think anything was in full bloom yet. And I was right, the flowers are silk. Still, even if the flowers bloom for all eternity, it is like a fairy tale for all seasons.