The Whirlwind Is in the Thorn Tree

Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin', voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
-Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around

It was misty and raining when I stopped at the little cemetery. I had spent too much time indoors over the weekend and it was good to get outside, even in the rain. I felt free. My head was clear. My soul rejoiced to walk among the silent dead.

A tree had fallen and it lay like a long, thin porcupine beside the tiny mausoleum; spiky here, spiky there. Someone will have to clean it up, I thought; not me. I saw several fresh graves, a thing I do not think I've seen there before.

And oddly, I discovered a bundle of sharpened wooden stakes piled atop the bench inside the little white gazebo. For staking vampires, perhaps, should the dead try to rise before Jesus calls their names? Peculiar, that. (Holy water, anyone?)

I walked among the graves taking pictures, touching stones, reading names; paying my respects in the way that I do. (We will remember you.) I straightened the flowers here and there. When I find a fallen flag, I try to replace it where it belongs, if I can. I like to help keep a tidy cemetery.

At the back of the cemetery, I have discovered a collection of fallen grave stones piled in a heap. The front stone is that of a Civil War veteran. You can tell by the little GAR marker to the right of the flag.

This particular flag was tangled up in a thorn bush, and I made just one attempt to free it before realizing it was probably not going to let go easily. I had no desire to go to work with bloody fingers. So I gave up.

"Bloody hands? What did you DO this morning?" "Oh, just trying to rescue my flag from a bunch of pricks who are holding it hostage. You know how that goes." In other words: just another day in America. Maybe next time I'll feel braver. Or wear some gloves.

The image of the captured flag stuck with me, and I thought about how hard the wind had to have blown to wrap the flag so firmly around the thorn bush. A powerful thing, that wind.

It reminded me of a Johnny Cash song, a line about the whirlwind in the thorn tree. One of his last, from the album American IV: The Man Comes Around, his 2002 collaboration with Rick Rubin. Here is the song and you can read some of the lyrics above: Johnny Cash, with the title track, The Man Comes Around.