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 take
All water from the streams; dead birds were found
In wells a hundred feet below the ground—
Such was the season when the flower bloomed.
Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed
Significance. Superstition saw
Something it had never seen before:
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.
Slavery in the south was brutal as anybody could imagine, but Toomer expresses this idea through the metaphor of the white patriarchal society physically raping the fertile maternal Earth. The slave owning community takes form in the likes “An cotton, scare as any southern snow” (3) as this crop covered the land and took its roots in the Earth of the southern states. However, Toomer illustrates that over time the earth faced a drought. “Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take / All water from the stream; dead birds were found / In wells a hundred feet below the ground” (6-8). The fertile ground has been raped and drained by the white roots that have abused the land and broken its sprit. The Earth can only resist for so long before it is a mindless beaten lifeless thing. In the feminist lens, the ground is, as stated, the victim of rape of the white dominating entity that the ground must cater to. The Cotton crop driven by the hunger for money does not care for the damage it does to the maternal earth. The land can only provide for so long before it is tired and dies, taking the life of all around it “dead birds were found” (7). The maternal Earth is victim. “Old folks were startles” (10) acts as a representation of the bystanders who stand by and allow the rape to happen. They stand idle while the patriarchal society that is the cotton industry, has its way. It sows its seeds, reaps the benefits, and drains everything it comes into contact with.