This poem is about the ever-changing and always-present feeling that I lack the courage of my convictions: that I'm not Canadian enough, that I'm not a really good blind person in terms of advocating for disability rights, that I'm not a good enough Christian because I don't stand up and support certain causes, that I'm not any number of things that society has called me to be. So, this poem is about that anxiety and about what must be, if not its complete resolution, at least a way to keep it oriented hopefully correctly.

On What Hill

On what hill will I die?

What blessed plot of ground will be the place

Wherein I plant my feet, burning with blisters,

Or fly my flag, filled with holes

Of half-kept promises and hollowed out principles?

Are there now too many hills?

Too many calls to arms or cries for justice?

Will there ever be a time to take my stand,

Staying steadfast against the storm,

Keeping moral courage in the face of this minute's mortal enemy?

In truth, I cannot trust one bit of earth,

For all seems shifting, unstable sand,

Today's cries for change becoming tomorrow's crumbled dreams,

Freedom finding no place to set her sacred foot,

A vagabond queen of hedges and ditches.

So all these hills I willingly surrender, save only one,

The skull's tomb, where scandal scaled the heights of glory!

That hill, I pray, will always find me near,

That hill on which humanity was crowned anew,

Whom Christ bore bleeding into Paradise.

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