Tropical Soul in Winter

Jim Libiran, an acclaimed Filipino filmmaker, writer, and seasoned storyteller with decades of experience, has recently moved to Canada. “Starting over in a new country is never easy", he recently wrote, "it requires resilience and courage that come from embracing both uncertainty and opportunity.”

By Jim Meer Libiran

Picture-perfect scenery.
A children's park,
draped in white snow powder.
A man stands—a shadow misplaced,
an apparition unmoored.
Not reveling, not revealing,
just letting life unravel.

A tropical soul clothed in black,
adrift in the hush of immaculate winter.
Picture-perfect, almost—
until one shuts their eyes,
and feels the chill,
climbing the spine,
gnawing at the tender roots
of distant struggles.

Memories drip like thawing snow,
snow erases the weight of memory.
Exposed, raw,
lacking a shield to keep the cold at bay,
he stands—not to meet the sun,
but to turn his back on the cruel squall
that strips away
his brown skin,
his tropical soul.

Picture-perfect
is rarely the perfect picture.

Jim Meer Libiran
5 December 2024, 12:21pm
Scarborough, Ontario