"The Garden Shukkei-En" Analysis

The title of the poem is"The Garden Shukkei-En" and the poem is probably regarding the garden.

"By way of a vanished bridge we cross this river
as a cloud of lifted snow would ascend a mountain."
We will use a bridge that has disappeared in order to cross this river just like a cloud with snow would climb a mountain.

"She has always been afraid to come here."
She was always afraid to come here.

"It is the river she most
remembers, the living
and the dead both crying for help."
She remembers the river the most. The living and the dead are crying for help.

"A world that allowed neither tears nor lamentation."
A world that does not allow tears nor weeping.

"The matsu trees brush her hair as she passes
beneath them, as do the shining strands of barbed wire."
Her hair is caught in the tree and barbed wire as she walks by.

"Where this lake is, there was a lake,
where these black pine grow, there grew black pine."
There is a lake here and black pine grows here.

"Where there is no teahouse I see a wooden teahouse
and the corpses of those who slept in it."
I see a teahouse where there is none, with the dead who are sleeping in it.

"On the opposite bank of the Ota, a weeping willow
etches its memory of their faces into the water."
On the river, the weeping willow reflects their faces onto the water.

"Where light touches the face, the character for heart is written."
When the light is on your face, the word heart is there.

"She strokes a burnt trunk wrapped in straw:
I was weak and my skin hung from my fingertips like cloth"
She touches a part of the burnt trunk that is wrapped in straw. My hand was weak and my skin felt like it was going to fall off.

"Do you think for a moment we were human beings to them?"
Do you think for a moment that they considered us, equally, as human beings?

"She comes to the stone angel holding paper cranes.
Not an angel, but a woman where she once had been,
who walks through the garden Shukkei-en
calling the carp to the surface by clapping her hands."
She goes to the statue of the stone angel holding paper cranes. The angel is not an angel, but it was a person who was there before. Who walked through the garden calling the fish to the surface by clapping her hands.

"Do Americans think of us?"
Do the Americans think of us?

"So she began as we squatted over the toilets:
If you want, I'll tell you, but nothing I say will be enough."
As we squatted over the toilets, she began to talk. She said, "If you want, I'll tell you, but nothing I say will be enough."

"We tried to dress our burns with vegetable oil."
We are using vegetable oil to dress our burns.

"Her hair is the white froth of rice rising up kettlesides, her mind also.
In the postwar years she thought deeply about how to live."
Her hair is white and her mind is foggy. After the war, she thinks about how to proceed with life.

"The common greeting dozo-yiroshku is please take care of me.
All hibakusha still alive were children then."
The common greeting is please take care of me. All hibakusha, those who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, were children when it happened.

"A cemetery seen from the air is a child's city."
A cemetery seen from up high is like a child's city because it is so small.

"I don't like this particular red flower because
it reminds me of a woman's brain crushed under a roof."
I don't like this red flower because it reminds me of a woman's brain, who was crushed under a roof.

"Perhaps my language is too precise, and therefore difficult to understand?"
Perhaps I am too detailed, which could be making it difficult for you to comprehend.

"We have not, all these years, felt what you call happiness.
But at times, with good fortune, we experience something close.
As our life resembles life, and this garden the garden.
And in the silence surrounding what happened to us"
Through all these years, we have not felt happiness. However, there are times of good fortune in which we experience something close to happiness. Our life resembles life and this garden resembles a garden. The silence about the details of what happened to us

"it is the bell to awaken God that we've heard ringing."
is the bell ringing to awaken God.

The author uses personification and imagery throughout the poem. An example would be the first 2 lines when she is personifying the cloud and describing it in order to convey to the audience the image of it ascending a mountain. "... as a cloud of lifted snow would ascend a mountain." Alliteration is used in part of the poem to emphasize her remembering the past while incorporating it into the future. "Where this is... Where there is..." She also uses rhetorical questions to invoke in the readers, guilt, and sympathy as they too try to answer the question. "Do you think for a moment we are human beings to them?"

The tone of the poem was heavy-hearted. Her diction conveyed a dark mood throughout the poem. She uses words such as "dead", "crying", "tears", "corpses" in her poem in order to the emphasize the negativity and distress of the experience that the person who is telling the story, went through. The mood is also gloomy and nostalgic as she remembers of how the garden used to be before, but because it is incorporated in the future as well, she knows that what was, is no longer, and what shall be, is her future. She remembers of the places and people that used to be there, and she knows of where they are now. Gone. That is her future. One without the teahouse, or the people who would sit in there. "Where there is no teahouse I see a wooden teahouse and the corpses of those who slept in it."

At the end of the poem, her language shifted. Throughout the poem, she provided concrete language to describe the bombing and her experience; however, at the end, when she is asked to describe how she is after the bombing, she provides a vague description. "We have not, all these years, felt what you call happiness. But at times, with good fortune, we experience something close."

"The Garden of Shukkei-En" The title is about the historic Japanese garden in Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima was bombed by the United States and this park was collateral damage.

The themes of this poem are violence, inhumanity, and memories. "Do you think for a moment we were human beings to them?" Because of the atomic bombing, many people died and those who survived will forever contain in their memories the tragic incident. There will be millions of innocent lives that are lost forever, some just born to those who have lived a long life. The inhumanity of the people who decided to bomb the innocent civilians is questioned.They may have ended a war, but lost millions of lives as well as caused in those who survived, PTSD.





Works Cited:

Forché, Carolyn. “The Garden Shukkei-En.” PoemHunter.com, 13 Jan. 2003,
      www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-garden-shukkei-en/.