An Afternoon With the Jackson Greys

Soft winds whip around the sleeping trees. The dense clouds drifting behind the rough obelisk, forming a Confederate monument, were suffused with the same greyness as the stone they framed.  
 
The slight scent of manure tinged the fresh air - but it didn’t really bother me. New life grew where new death lies.The skillfully-made wooden bench I’m sitting is still wet from the night’s rain. Assume what meaning you’d like, but it’s peaceful around the dead.  
 
I think I catch a flash of lightning in my peripheral and immediately dismiss thoughts about the consequences.A sliver of emerging sunshine casts a spotlight on the names of the fallen. Above my right shoulder, seven stars are wrapped around a flagpole.  
 
Worn by time and nature, some old stones bare the barely legible temporal boundaries of lives once lived. Their families rest in the cold plots beside them; brothers, sisters, children, and grey coats lie in this history-rich earth.