Striving for Peace – The ‘peace piece’ has four planes rising from a conical base. The pedestal in the center represents future peace, holding up an infant human in need of care. A second plane represents peace efforts from the past, supporting an old man, whose attempts at providing a peaceful world have not succeeded. A third, referring to peace in the present, flows upward from a woman – one who gives us birth and life, and through her mother-caring nurtures our desire for peace. A fourth plane represents the broken bow of our human world, which is striving for tranquility rather than destruction.
The sloping base demonstrates our continuous struggle upward towards a higher plane of peaceful co-existence. This sculpture has forms of frozen movement that may appear to dance, and silent images that look like they are communicating with each other. Together they embody ideas in form and narrative that enclose a center for peace among those who seek unity between ideologies, doctrines and beliefs.
When passing the peace piece from one person to another, the burden is lighter if two or more carry it. The Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize is a cooperative effort to which we all are called. The poetry recognizes the work of nine Nobel Laureates: UN Peacekeeping Operations, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Lech Walesa, the International Red Cross, Norman Borlaug, Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrei Sakharov, Elie Wiesel, and Mother Teresa.
Originally presented at the first Nobel Peace Prize Forum in 1989, it was given to Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, 1977, and to the 1988 Laureate UN Peacekeeping Operations. Several years later it was presented as a gift from St. Olaf College to Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway for her Royal Collection in Oslo. The original bronze casting is in Rolvaag Memorial Library at St. Olaf College, placed in honor of the retirement of Librarian Forrest Brown.
STRIVING FOR PEACE
by mac gimse, February, 1989
Striving for peace is always dawning.
As the birds sing, you and I answer their songs of hope
for morning to break on gentler liberties.
UN Peacekeeping
Dew gathers between the warmth of our patriot dreams
and the coolness of our changeling neighbors
who steal our trust from unguarded boundaries.
Oscar Arias Sanchez
For those who labor in fruitless toil beyond
their strength, we disperse our gains,
a witness to our seamless solidarities.
Lech Walesa
We gather for those waking to disaster,
whose dreams are crushed by war and nature,
to offer relief from their miseries.
Red Cross
For those awe-washed by our planet-absorbing greed,
enslaved on pathways to their daily bread,
we send aid for their ailing economies.
Norman Borlaug
For those dwindling in self-esteem by shape or color of skin,
from parentage beyond their choosing,
we pledge their children equalities.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
For those who shake the bars of gender jails,
and cry from political prison cells,
we plead release from their captors’ keys.
Andrei Sakharov
For those bound by ancient creeds or grasping the Holy Grail,
lest they crusade for another battle clasp,
we embrace their holocaust memories.
Elie Wiesel
For fingers that yearn to touch our careful clothing,
beyond their poverty lingering,
springs compassion for their agonies.
Mother Theresa
We gather, ‘…striving for peace’ in our hands-on dream,
as our earthen journey, dawning dances
into the peace of tomorrow’s striving
to pursue anew our lost destinies.