Minidoka Relocation Site
In a bleak forsaken place,
tumbleweeds gather
and derelict barracks
and bare cement foundations
bear witness that thousands
of Japanese Americans
slogged through the mud
and baked in the heat
of Hunt Camp.
Silence reigns, save the
chuck-chucking of irrigation sprinklers,
making it hard to imagine
cook pots clanking,
old women gossiping,
generators humming,
vehicle tires crunching,
children reciting the pledge of allegiance
in a place surrounded with barbwire
and guarded by reluctant G.I.’s.
13,000 people were forced
to leave homes and livelihoods
to live inside tarpaper buildings.
Whole families were crammed
into 20-by-20 foot rooms
in a then, never-silent place.
Through paper-thin walls
seeped sounds of whispered quarreling,
children calling out for parents,
a neighbor’s husband snoring,
mothers sobbing for their soldier sons.
Now, a red-tailed hawk circles overhead,
searching the sagebrush for carrion.
Paint peels from reclaimed buildings,
and the sun beats down where
incarcerated Japanese,
citizens and immigrants,
choked during dust storms,
suffered relentless winter winds,
and designed oriental gardens,
sculpting beauty out of heartbreak.