Brilliant
The world dressed and waiting
In brilliant winter white
All to quickly to be sullied
By traffic of the night
Trying to retain beauty
Amidst the salt and grit and tears
Will anybody listen when I tell
All my dark fears
Image Description: A woman snowboarder in tan pants, a brown jacket with caramel accents and a black helmet leans back while traveling down a ski hill in the Gatineau Hills. Trees on either side jut up against the winter white.
For this poem I wanted to tie in the two elements of the crisp beautiful perfection and innocence of an untouched winter morning as well as the concept of historically the perfect bride who is virginal and has also been untouched as a man. And yet I wanted to have that fear and grit and pain of life that we all experience. To bring in where we have “traffic of the night” which could be either taken as a sexual thing or just the movement of vehicles turning up the dirt and snow into slush. And then the finale “Will anybody listen when I tell all my dark fears.” There’s that sense of you are expected to have perfection. People don’t want to see that slushy, gritty inside. I really wanted to play with that contrast of those two images and how both snow and individuals can experience an outside of perfection while inside they are struggling.