Kale

Content notes: pregnancy, poverty, trading a child away, isolation, confi nement

“The baby wants kale”, the woman said,
Laying a hand on her womb so round.
And the greenest of kale lay just ahead
In the neighbouring garden, it covered the ground.

As the husband was poor he decided to steal
The kale for his wife in the dead of night.
But on entering the garden, he broke a seal
And was held by a spell and an eerie light.

A witch appeared as the light did fade
It was her garden, as you might know
Afraid for his life, the man made a trade:
In exchange for his child, she allowed him to go.

The child grew up, and became a young man,
Who was handsome and strong and kind;
The witch named him Kale and made a plan
To hide him for none to find.

She locked him up in a tower so high
No door or stairs, just one window so small
Even if someone should happen by
They never could climb up that wall.

For the witch to visit, he had to be told
“Let down thy beard, Kale, my boy”.
And he would unwind then his beard of gold
So she could climb up to her joy.

A year or two later, a princess did chance
On a tower she’d never heard of.
There was singing, so cheerful, she just had to dance:
It was Kale, in the room far above.

The princess wanted to know how to meet
The one singing so beautifully.
As she couldn’t fly up to the music so sweet
She sat down to think, under a tree.

As she sat there and wondered what means to employ
The witch came along and did say:
“Let down thy beard, Kale, my boy”
And the princess observed the display.

The next evening the princess came back again
To stand at the base of the tower,
And tried the voice of the witch to feign
As she called out the words of power.

She climbed up the beard as the witch, too, had done
And beheld a man, pleasing the eye;
The man who had charmed her so well with his song.
And she greeted him, suddenly shy.

Kale was surprised a stranger to see,
But the princess was friendly and cute.
She said that his voice had haunted her dream,
And a tender emotion took root.

The princess then asked if he wanted to flee
With her, off to her land in the west;
And as he was bored of the tower, you see
He agreed this might be for the best.

For so long he’d been asking the witch for a way
That would get him out of his room
But she had decided that he had to stay
In a place that felt like a tomb.

The princess then let down her hair for to see
That it, too, did reach to the ground.
And down her long tresses then clambered he
Until he was down, safe and sound.

With her hair pulled back up, the princess then flew
From the window, into his embrace.
He caught her and then set her down in the dew
And they left, without leaving a trace.

Did they stay together? Did their ways part?
This I have not been told.
As this was no ending, but a fresh start
With their stories yet to unfold.