Too Young to Remember Minidoka, Idaho.

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I do not remember the cold Idaho winter winds,

the knee deep mud that oppressed 10,000 souls or

the harsh summer heat and dust.

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I do not remember the miles of clotheslines,

dirty diapers, the noise of families crowded in barracks

and canned Vienna sausage that

seemed to exude endlessly from the mess hall.�

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Floating in the amniotic fluid,

my Mother�s anxieties

enveloped and nurtured me,

tethered in a salty brine, pheromones of�

fear and sadness nourished me.

Maybe it was the loss of her home,

the evacuation, the barbed wire,

being betrayed by her country,

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Or maybe it was the stillborn child,

she referred to as �It�. �

My aunt described it as ��budo�

or a cluster of grapes.

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I recalled what Barry my psychiatrist friend said about

parents emotionally� distancing� themselves

from� new� children� immediately� after a still born.

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Sixty years later on drizzly Seattle days,

when the November� sky is overcast, and

the darkness begins at 4:00 PM,

I feel my mother�s sadness like a cold wind from Idaho.

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Sometimes I wish I could remember Minidoka.

I would trade those memories

for the� sadness and fear I carry in my genes.

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Larry� Matsuda, November 2004

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