The Name I Never Knew

The whistle cut the morning

Like a blade through frozen air

Twenty minutes borrowed

From the weight of all this fear

I ran with my red satchel

Past the smoke and shattered steel

Counting breaths and seconds

Trying not to think or feel

One hand pressed a bandage

One hand pulled a stretcher through

Everybody bleeding

Everybody someone’s truth

And for a little moment

The guns forgot their song

Like the world remembered mercy

Before remembering it was wrong

I found you by the ridgeline

Half buried in the clay

Your rifle lay forgotten

A few feet away

The patch upon your shoulder

Didn’t matter anymore

I’ve seen too many colors

On too many fields of war

The blood was dark and shining

The same as every man

The wound spoke plain and honest

Before I touched my hand

I checked for some small miracle

Some thread that I could save

But all I found was borrowed time

And courage I could gave

What struck me as I knelt there

Was something I still know

We’re all the same beneath the skin

Red rivers, flesh and bone

No border in your heartbeat

No flag inside your veins

Just somebody’s son still breathing

Through impossible pain

I had no miracle left to give

No way to turn the tide

No stitch to mend what war had torn

No place for you to hide

So I tipped my canteen to your lips

And held your trembling hand

If I could not bring you home alive

I’d stay as long as I can

And when the siren called my name

Across that shattered land

You were not an enemy

You were just a man

The warning sounded once again

A cry across the plain

Voices shouting, “Move now!”

As the sky turned sharp with rain

The first arrows found the daylight

And instinct took command

I threw myself above you

Before I understood I ran

For one brief breath I covered you

As if that still could save

As if my back could bargain

With the promise of your grave

Then another horn came calling

And another volley flew

I felt your fingers loosen

And I knew

They called me from the ridgeline

Voices breaking through

Another dozen wounded

Waiting somewhere beyond you

My hands would not obey me

My knees stayed in the mud

As if the world had narrowed

To your face and all that blood

I said a prayer I don’t remember

I spoke a name I never knew

Then I stood and turned away

Because I had to

I had no miracle left to give

No way to change your fate

So I gave the only thing I could

And stayed until too late

And when the sirens called again

Across that shattered land

You were not an enemy

You were just a man

And every face I’ve carried since

Still brings me back to then

To the day I learned that mercy

Can’t always save a friend

The horn still finds me

Some nights in my sleep

And somewhere in the silence

I still see your eyes

Not enemy

Not stranger

Just human