The haiku poem that I believe captured the experience of daily life at the internment camp was “Firm buds will open when the day comes looking up at the trees” (Reiko Gomyo 105). Firstly, I thought it was really interesting that the buds are considered to be in an undeveloped stage, one of those reasons is because the camp was created in the month of February. That being said, many flowers and plants around that month are in their blooming stages, so the season this poem is portraying is close to spring. Furthermore, this poem had its lines that portrayed imagery. For instance, visually you are able to see a flower or a leaf in the development of which the plant is not in full bloom. “Looking up at the trees” also has you visualizing the presence of a tree, only it has no leaves or flowers because the buds remain closed until “the day comes”. The buds are an important symbolization of the many Japanese who felt trapped and isolated through the oppressive conditions in the internment camp. There were many barbed wire fences around the camp along with guard towers as a way to keep surveillance on the Japanese. All the hardships that the Japanese have encountered in the camp was through the buds for this poem. They represented “firm buds” as to say they were closed off from the world but continued to strive in living a normal life.
To continue, the Japanese lives in the internment camp had many of its difficulties but they continued to push through by establishing settlements and building upon their community. In the poem it states, “Firm buds will open when the day comes” which I believe “when the day comes” is referring to the moment of which they are freed from the camp, only then the “buds will open”. In other words, the Japanese would feel full of life once they would leave from the internment camp “looking up at the trees”. In my opinion, this part of the poem was another way of saying there is a chance. Looking towards the trees, looking at its stems, either the buds will grow or will not. Just as the Japanese, even as they stayed in the camp for 3 years in isolation, they built upon their community, it may not have been through hope, but it was a way to make a life out of it.
Celeste Tejeda-Menera