If They Come To Shoot You

By Alice Walker in Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth

If they come to shoot you
and because you lived in
Mississippi
where so many
died
you know
they might:
ask them first
to let you find
your hidden
picture
of
Che Guevara

Place it just
at eye level
& if you cannot
find it
even after
they've
ransacked
your house
imagine
those eyes
bright & steady
the calm of them
on that last morning
in a poor
chilly
village
in Bolivia

His death offered
as a birthday
present
to a young man
so young & ignorant
that he took careful, prideful aim.

Meanwhile, El Che,
the schoolteacher
who gave him
his last supper
reports,
stood at ease
on his wounded leg
though he
had beld
steadily
through the long night

His imperturbable idea was to come back
after his escape
& build her
a proper school.(Perhaps it was this audacity that caused them,later, to cut off his hands.)
With what compassion
he must have gazed
at his young
murderer

An assassin
kept
brutish &
illiterate
for just such
a purpose
as this.

Someone so mulelike
we can almost hear
the whining
of imcomprehension
thirty years
after
that fateful morning
as all
the campesinos
in this neighborhood
don't even
jeer at him
anymore
but simply
turn

their sun-withered
cheeks
away.

I too

pray for you
young, poor,ignorant
pathetic
assassin

You have been sent by someone
who also
does not
understand

& that is what
we can
remember
to do
pray
for them
when they come
for us.