Requiem for Liviu (Live you) Librescu, the Gandalf of Virginia Tech
I heard something about Professor Liviu(Live you) Librescu reminding them of Gandalf on The Morning in America Bennett Program and went a looking. The quote I believe they referred to from the Lord of the Rings was:
- Gandalf: "You cannot pass... I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The Dark Flame will not avail you, Flame of Udun. Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!"
Indeed this scene from Tolkien's Movie: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is so very appropriate for this Heroic Professor who saved 21 of his students. In the process I stumbled over a Poem, at BillyBlog, written for this Amazing Man by poet William Dickerson Cohen's. His words capture the mind-boggling valor of this Life Giving Man and are so stirring and heart felt. Indeed this is a fitting Requiem Hymn or Composition for this Patron Saint of the 21st Century against Terrorism:
Billyblog
You were thirteen when the War ended.
Did you have a bar mitzvah?
Surely you must have remembered
the swastikas and the hateful glances.
And now, sixty years later,
your body lies waiting
to go home to Israel.
What the Nazis couldn't do
was done, indiscriminately,
in your second home, the classroom.
The gunman's bullets
ripped through the barricaded door,
ending your life.
Your students, some of them, if not all,
will forever associate your name
with the sparing of their lives.
Your name will be in their prayers
and the blessings of their thankful families.
Your dying moment, surely, will be burned
into the memories of those you helped save.
All I know of you
is the photograph and
four short paragraphs in
The New York Times.
I imagine you rising with singed wings
out of the ashes of Europe,
soaring through life,
teaching with passion,
giving your life to your students
giving your life for your students
giving your life
dying so they might live.
Did you have a bar mitzvah?
Surely you must have remembered
the swastikas and the hateful glances.
And now, sixty years later,
your body lies waiting
to go home to Israel.
What the Nazis couldn't do
was done, indiscriminately,
in your second home, the classroom.
The gunman's bullets
ripped through the barricaded door,
ending your life.
Your students, some of them, if not all,
will forever associate your name
with the sparing of their lives.
Your name will be in their prayers
and the blessings of their thankful families.
Your dying moment, surely, will be burned
into the memories of those you helped save.
All I know of you
is the photograph and
four short paragraphs in
The New York Times.
I imagine you rising with singed wings
out of the ashes of Europe,
soaring through life,
teaching with passion,
giving your life to your students
giving your life for your students
giving your life
dying so they might live.
Copyright © 2007
His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.(Matthew 25:23)
Indeed, Bravo Professor "Live You" Librescu Well Done good and courageous servant of Humanity enter Sir into the Glory of thy God!
posted by Powder Tracks and Fever @ 7:27 AM
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