The following poem was part of the convocation held at Tech this afternoon, and I felt it was especially reflective of the sentiment I gather from people i've talked to who were on campus.
We are Virginia Tech
We are sad today
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 and cry, and sad enough to know that 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 who watches his community be devastated for ivory
Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water
Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib, in the house his father built with his own hands, being run over by a boulder, because the land was destabilized.
No one deserves a tragedy.
We are Virginia Tech.
The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hand 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 to 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
This week we are all members of the Hokie Nation.
Nikki Giovanni Audio