Poem eulogizes victims of Station nightclub blaze
On Feb. 3, Leonard Angers of Auburn, who lost his daughter Stacie Angers at The Station nightclub fire, reached out to published author Liz Newman about writing a memorial piece for “the 100 young concertgoers that died that night."
Three days later, Newman emailed him back the following poem.
May You Continue to Sing
There are some who become
Well-acquainted with grief,
Whose lives are touched
By unbearable tragedy,
Who experience depths of pain
No soul should ever have to see:
Like when a night of music
And celebration
Turns sharply to sorrow
And misery.
When the unthinkable happens
So quickly and mercilessly.
100 beautiful souls,
Each with a song
of their own to sing.
Each life a piece
of a family soundtrack
And a loss that
impacts everything. 100 lives
100 voices with songs
that are left unsung.
They had more parts to play,
They’d only just begun.
And homes and hearts feel
out of balance and out of tune
When they’re gone.
The pain strikes a chord
Of unimaginable grief
Their loss, a painful reminder that
Tragedy’s a merciless thief.
100 lives lost much too soon,
With so much love to bring.
100 voices that deserved more time
And had so much more to sing.
But in the depths of
Aching silence
May loved ones listen close
May their hearts pay close attention
To the ones they miss the most,
May their voices feel empowered
By the songs they left behind,
And the knowledge that
Their life’s songs are forever intertwined.
And though your voices
May feel shaky
And your hearts
May hurt and ache
Their lives left you the lyrics
A bond that nothing else could break.
So, let their love
Be your loudest melody
Sing it as their enduring legacy
Every note and chord,
Every memory,
You know it by heart,
You know every word
Of the love that they gave you,
So steady and sure.
100 lives,
100 voices, 100 songs to sing.
May you share with the world
How their songs continue
To reverberate and to ring.
May their story harmonize with yours,
Their love
transcending everything.
And may you always
Have the courage to
continue to sing.
Liz Newman
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Poem eulogizes victims of Station nightclub blaze
