At the end of the program, Alice Walker read "Thousands of Feet Below You," from the collection Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth. "This is a medicine poem," she said, by way of introduction, "for all the young African Americans, in particular, who are sent to war, and they find themselves killing people that in their little home villages they would be inviting into the house for dinner. So this is a medicine poem that says after you have gone and done these awful things, this is what you must do when you come back."

Thousands of feet
Below you
There is a small
Boy
Running from
Your bombs.

If he were
To show up
To your mother's
House
On a green
Sea island
Off the coast
Of Georgia

He'd be invited in
For dinner.

Now, driven,
You have shattered
His bones.

He lies steaming
In the desert
In fifty or sixty
Or maybe one hundred
Oily, slimy bits.

If you survive
& return
To your island
Home.

& your mother's
Gracious
Table
Where the cup
Of lovingkindness
Overflows
The brim
(&
From which
No one
In memory
Was ever
Turned)

Gather yourself.
Set a place
For him.