Pax-salon Mailing List: Fwd: We Are Virginia Tech, by Nikki Giovanni

[patty (pattypax]

Nikki G taught English there at one time.  i tho't you all would want 
to read this.  patty

Begin forwarded message:

> From: moderator [at] PORTSIDE.ORG
> Date: Wed Apr 18, 2007  8:35:02  PM US/Central
> To: PORTSIDE [at] LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
> Subject: We Are Virginia Tech, by Nikki Giovanni
> Reply-To: moderator [at] PORTSIDE.ORG
>
> We Are Virginia Tech
>
> Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor of English, VPI&SU
> http://www.english.vt.edu/
>
> 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 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 a rogue army
>
> Neither does the baby elephant watching his community
> Be devastated for ivory
> Neither does the Mexican child looking
> For fresh water
>
> Neither does the Iraqi teenager dodging bombs
>
> Neither does the Appalachian infant killed
> By a boulder
> Dislodged
> 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 mind
> To those who offer their hearts and hands
>
> We are strong
> And brave
> And innocent
> And unafraid
>
> We are better than we think
> And not yet quite what we want to be
>
> We are alive to imagination
> And open to 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, delivered at the Convocation, April 17, 2007
>
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