POEM for those left standing...

'I am a person stuck with unrequested labels, Northern, female
Short-sighted, red-haired, maladroit
I worked for others, as a student, parent, activist, poet
Some labels I aspired to: Quaker, world traveller, true artist, cook
And others came from cruel authority,
Dispensed regardless…’too disabled’... to be me
That closed some minor official’s little book
Upon my whole life’s purpose…
But I live for human rights and human worth
I did not earn or deserve their scornful look.

I am a human being
I am real.
And you can watch me for this hour
To find out how I feel...
Those officials cursed me with the label of disability/impairment/deficit/
Of being one of ‘them’, not one of ‘us’.

But I am human, I am real.
I am a person who can feel.
I will defeat their bureaucratizing zeal.

Now look into the utter folly of their fear.
It is every person’s power that I reveal
By simply standing here.

I went along to the Labour party conference in Brighton, wearing a tee-shirt which said, 'too disabled to be...a social worker?' and handed out the plinth poem, 'For those left standing' to a number of startled politicians to remind them that one in five of the UK population is 'disabled'...by society's low expectations of us. Various journalists also got the poem. Health should not be a determining factor in retention in any of the professions in England, as is currently the case.
The fact of poor access, progress and retention of disabled students in higher education is shameful, and needs to be challenged.

Ability, creativity, hope and perseverance are not the sole domain of the able-bodied.