Emily Dickinson’s poem, "To Die Takes Just A Little While," is a meditation on the passage from life to death. My updated Wall Street version of this work, "An Option Withers Like A Rose," explores a different kind of expiration—this one involving stock options rather than human life. It might also serve as a primer for would-be option buyers.
An Option Withers
Like A Rose
An option withers like a rose
Whose season has expired;
Its value lessens by degrees,
Time makes it less desired.
Unless the underlying stock
The right direction goeth,
The option shadow’s ticking clock
Its owner’s fortunes bloweth.
Each spring a rose bush mimes the sun
With flaming hues galore;
But once an option’s race is run
It don’t come back no more
*******
