Darling, Powerful Nikki

We Are Virginia Tech

We are Virginia Tech
We are sad today
And we will be sad for quite a while.
We are not moving on
We are embracing our mourning.
We are Virginia Tech
We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly
We are brave enough to bend to cry …
And sad enough to know we must laugh again.
We are Virginia Tech
We do not understand this tragedy.
We know we did nothing to deserve it.
But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS.
Neither do the invisible children
walking the night away
to avoid being captured by a rogue army.
Neither does the baby elephant
watching his community being devastated for ivory.
Neither does the Mexican child
looking for fresh water.
Neither does the Appalachian infant
killed in the middle of night in his crib
in the home its father built with his own hands
being run over by a boulder
because the land was destablized.
No one deserves a tragedy.
We are Virginia Tech.
The Hokie nation embraces our own and
reaches out with open heart and hands
to those who offer their hearts and minds.
We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid.
We are better than we think and
not quite what we want to be.
We are alive to the imagination and the possibility.
We will continue to invent the future.
Through our blood and tears
Through all this sadness
We are the Hokies.
We will prevail
We will prevail
We will prevail
We are Virginia Tech.

-- Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor of English, VTI&SU UPDATE: Thu., Apr. 19