November Cotton Flower

Boll-weevil's coming, and the winter's cold,

Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old,

And cotton, scarce as any southern snow,

Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow,

Failed in its function as the autumn rake;

Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to

All water from the streams; dead birds were

In wells a hundred feet below the ground—Such was the season when the flower bloomed.

Old folks were startled, and it soon

Significance.

Superstition

Something it had never seen before:

Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,

Beauty so sudden for that time of year.