Cane

“Nullo” is a short, single-stanza poem in free verse with just seven lines. The poem, written in the third person and past tense, describes pine needles falling onto a forest path. The rabbits do not know about them falling, and the pine needles do not cause a fire.

“Evening Song,” another poem, has three stanzas of four lines each (the first line of the final stanza is long and technically finishes on another line). The speaker is with Cloine, the woman the speaker loves. In the first stanza, Cloine is becoming sleepy, which the speaker recognizes by her loosely parted lips. Soon, Cloine is asleep, and the speaker also expects to join her in slumber. Cloine lies curled up against the speaker. 

Set in a town in Georgia, “Esther” is divided into three parts, with subsections stating Esther’s age. The first subsection in part 1 is titled “Nine.” Esther is a very fair-skinned little girl with curly hair and high cheekbones. Her face is “prematurely serious,” the only thing keeping her from being more obviously “pretty.” One day when she is walking home, she passes by a dark-skinned man named