"...We Will Prevail..."

The above image is from Wednesday night's candlelight vigil held on the drillfield at Virginia Tech that I was fortunate enough to attend. I cross-posted this on Bored Young Professionals, and will be doing the same at NLS. I feel this image, and these words, are so bold and necessary for the healing process.
Below is the poem that was written by Distinguished Professor and world renowned poet Nikki Giovanni. She delivered it as the closing to Wednesday's Convocation in what ended the somber ceremony with vibrant cheers and chants of unity. These are the words of recovery:

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 we are 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 the 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 the night in his crib in the home 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 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 imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies!
We will prevail! We will prevail! We will prevail!
We are Virginia Tech!

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