Face of a Child

Within the scene of the war,

The eighteen year-old soldier squinted at the shore of Inchon.

Walking in the wave, a bomb hit his companion,
splattering intestines on the soldier's face and uniform.

Spitting out his scattered companion,
he frantically washed himself in the ocean.

Wanting to return to the ship, but ordered onward,
he forged ahead onto the shore with the waves.

Marching for weeks, the soldier neared a village outside Wonju.

Between rice thatched huts, he stomped among severed bodies,
smelling the stench of partially burned flesh.

He controlled his nausea, tasting his salty sweat;
he clenched his jaws, ready to blast the enemy.

Through the tear-blurred view, he thought he saw the face of a child
peering between the wooden slats of a hut.

He pushed the door slowly with the butt of his rifle,
and saw crouched, in the dark corner, children of all ages.

This soldier and his fightmates found more orphaned and abandoned
children as they searched through the village.

Gathering them up, they ran together, the soldiers with a child
on each shoulder, to a cave on the hill near the railroad tracks.

The soldiers left the children in the cave with water and rice,
telling them to be very quiet.

Taking branches and rocks, they camouflaged the entrance to the
children's hideaway.

The soldier waved good-bye, praying for their safety,
smiling at the face of a little girl.

In the next few days, as he fired his rifle,
he thought of the children in that cave.

When he and his fightmates returned and looked up that hill,
the air was filled with the smell of smoke in the moonlit night.

He rushed to the cave and pushed aside the unscorched branches.

The night's light fell on sleeping and smiling faces.

They guided the children toward American army jeeps,
lifting them up and sending them to safety.

As the soldier waved his ebony arm at the departing jeep,
he saw the face of a two year-old Korean girl,
between the canvases of the jeep.

During the rest of the days of the war,
on body-torturing marches, splashing through bloody rivulets
he moved forward and forward,

Living one more day
remembering the face of the girl that he saved,
within the scene of war.