A Mysterious Flag

       A couple of days ago I was to meet my friend Terry for lunch, but discovered he was at the dentist, having lost a cap from one his back teeth. He asked me to find something to do for an hour or so, and I drove over to St. Peter's Episcopal Church. I am a member there, although I haven't been participating in church recently, but thought I might sit in the parish hall and read, or maybe play the piano. But my car stopped abruptly in front the cemetery, so that's where I decided to spend my hour.
       The cemetery is beautiful, loaded with history; the tombstones are ornate and weathered. Live oak trees draped with Spanish moss loom over the cemetery like an umbrella, while rays of sunlight shine here and there through the trees. It was a lovely autumn day. I walked through the older part of the cemetery over to the children's garden, a place where there are benches to sit on. In the center is the Christmas Box Angel, a sculpture that pays homage to the lost children.
       As I sat on a bench, I was distracted by some movement to my right, and when I turned my head I saw a confederate flag, a large one, flapping around. Unfurling, I should say, as if it was hanging low on a flagpole and suddenly a breeze came up and caused the flag to wave about. This was happening behind the largest live oak tree. I had never noticed the flag before, so as I was already distracted I decided to venture to the other side of the tree to see where this flag was hanging.
       As I came around the path to the place I assumed the flag to be, I was surprised to see nothing. No confederate flag, no flag pole. Just more graves, stones and paths. And I realized that I had experienced some sort of apparition. This was not something I had imagined, nor was I dreaming. This was a real flag, and I vaguely recall that I heard it flapping in the breeze. I looked around and saw many smaller confederate flags that were placed on the graves of some of the soldiers there. I wandered though the cemetery, looking at every grave, wondering what the flag meant, and what had brought me here in the first place.
      This was three days ago, and today I'm going to stop by the cemetery again. There is something that I have missed, some reason that I saw that flag, apparition or not. A mystery, indeed.