{"id":3464,"date":"2013-08-12T08:54:34","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T13:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/?page_id=3464"},"modified":"2014-01-23T13:38:30","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T19:38:30","slug":"on-wings-of-freedom-1994","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/mac-gimse\/on-wings-of-freedom-1994\/","title":{"rendered":"On Wings of Freedom, 1994"},"content":{"rendered":"

STRIVING FOR PEACE: SOWING THE SEEDS OF JUSTICE
\n\"wings\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nobel Peace Prize Forum, St. Olaf College, 1994.
\n\u2026on Wings of Freedom\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/em>Sculpture and poetry by mac gimse
\nFor Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum<\/p>\n

We can still make PEACE
\nwith our neighbors who surround us,
\nwhile voices of children mingle joy
\nwith sirens of a distant sadness.
\nInfants call us with their cradled cries
\nto tell us we must heed their future.<\/p>\n

Their dream of PEACE is bourne for all to share,
\nwhile we declare that freedom is a sheltered place,
\na protected toil, an unviolated space.
\nOUR ease in OUR bodies in OUR lifetime.
\nWhat we truly seek lies beyond our bodies,
\nbeyond the coursing of our ethnic blood,
\nbeyond the narrow vision of a homeland
\nthat is no longer home, nor ours.
\nRather, people come from everywhere
\nto join us at our table.<\/p>\n

Figures of the exiled,
\nthe homeless, the dissidents,
\nwait for us as global patriots
\nto light our wind-blown candle.
\nThe seamless sky
\nbetween my person and yours
\ndissolves into un-scrubbed ozone
\nand our freedom to be silent has ended.<\/p>\n

Is MY dream of PARADISE the same as YOURS?
\nOvernight I yearn to burst my bubble of extravagance,
\nwash away tarnished histories,
\nempty pockets of oppression,
\nshake out tatters of poverty,
\nand de-sanctify holy wars.<\/p>\n

My dream of paradise is here, within what I touch or torture.
\nMy paradise is in the midst of our collective wills,
\ninside our new and necessary way of life.
\nWords from every language speak
\nwith density of demands:
\nOur minds are traveling everywhere
\nat cyber-net speeds, into…<\/p>\n

Disorder<\/p>\n

dust<\/p>\n

Disorder<\/p>\n

dust…<\/p>\n

So comes our need for web-power, land-power, war-power,
\nwhere no one can tally the gains or losses.
\nIs POW-WAR our only sound for freedom?<\/p>\n

The newest atmosphere is full of weapons of the will
\nunleashed by silent affirmation,
\nwhile you and I go about our pre-assigned tasks.
\nDissonant voices make up stories: “Life is ending!
\nWe are dying! The world is coming undone!”<\/p>\n

I feel exposed, I need courage to mingle
\nwith your values, other doctrines, distant beliefs.
\nYOU are my next great mystery,
\nposing as the last living person who has a gentle voice to say,
\n“If anyone survives, it will be the humble
\nwho are concerned more about others than themselves.”
\nWhat do we ask of people winged with good fortune?
\nWe ask for their wealth in exchange for poverty,
\ntheir order in trade for chaos,
\ntheir safety as insurance against
\nthe world’s greatest risk:
\nThe right of each of us to live free from human harm!<\/p>\n

Epitaphs say, “they” are no more real than “we,”
\nand “we” are ordinary people, who have no business
\ndoing anything but to grasp our mutual freedoms:
\n…from barriers of color and gender and nation,
\n…from separating economies and polities,
\n…from partitions of creeds and prayers,
\n…from fences of faith and family to fight through.<\/p>\n

We piece together our breakable hearts to proclaim:
\n“This is not the final act!” Do you believe me?
\nVoices without gender speak in waking wisdom:
\n“As we give mercy, we shine brighter than we see,
\nas we seek justice, we rise cleaner than we feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cries of children penetrate our garden
\nto plead for fingertips to raise them up,
\nto embrace the despirited,
\nto hold the huddled lost,
\nthose who seek our shores on rafts of chance,
\nwho otherwise will disappear
\nbefore they reach our dwindling fires.
\nComforters come from exile,
\nreleased from pain and freed from silence.<\/p>\n

They sing a song for all of us to join:
\n“This is the cradle of our common bourning,
\nthe sphere of our finite journey.
\nON WINGS OF FREEDOM, we are becoming
\none children who struggle to see,
\na future of peace in our own awakening,
\nclaimed by all to be free!”<\/p>\n

mac gimse<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STRIVING FOR PEACE: SOWING THE SEEDS OF JUSTICE Nobel Peace Prize Forum, St. Olaf College, 1994. \u2026on Wings of Freedom\u00a0 Sculpture and poetry by mac gimse For Nobel Laureate Rigoberta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"parent":3437,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3464","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3464\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}