By the Seasons
Flyers go up for months
as if a single citizen would forget
the day in early Spring when Mesquite Bend
crowns what is the best among them.
She must glide like a dew drop
on a blade of grass early Fall mornings,
blossom like a cactus flower,
wear the pungent scent of cotton ginning
like Chanel No. 5.
Roberta Watts held court
for five years running, but her
days of glory have dried up
like the creek bed cracked
more days than water flows.
Young Lucy Mann reigns these days,
her twenty-something youth
the image of glory they all
long for. How many crops
have withered no matter how hard
they pray nightly, through years
of war and drought and even
slaughtered Presidents? Yet she
donns the finely-woven fibers
of the county and parades
around the square as if the world
were watching.
Her world watches, for no
Cotton Queen would dare
to long for any higher honor
than that paid by hands cracked
with blood wrung from their dusk
to dawn reality, this life they chose
at the mercy of Mother Nature
and the calling of those
who came before.
Ramona Levacy
April 6, 2015
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