Huddled, in the freezing pre-dawn
around a battery-powered altar
listening for what our cold
but eager ears wanted to hear

We sat, a worshipful group 
of teenage Christian companions 
on camp in the heart of winter
straining to make out what was happening 

in a rugby match on the other side
of the world, in Christchurch, where 
barbed wire encircled the ground, along with
angry anti-apartheid protesters 

We knew a limited amount about that; 
far less than I would 40 years hence, 
as a resident of Christchurch. We knew 
rugby, but were oblivious to the fact

that in townships in any direction people
were struggling to keep the cold out 
of draughty shacks in the bitterest hour
of a Highveld dawn. Oblivious to the 

injustice on the doorstep of our 
comfortable white middle-class lives
And no camp leader would raise
it with us as frigid pre-dawn unfolded 

into frosty day. None would question
the injustice, mention the marginalised
majority’s plight, alongside the white 
team we reverently congregated to honour

Grant Shimmin is a poet born in South Africa in 1967 and resident in New Zealand since 2001. Humanity is his most important poetic subject and many poems about South Africa reflect, personally, on the injustices of apartheid. Work at Roi Faineant Press, Does it Have Pockets, The Hooghly Review, Remington Review, Querencia Press and elsewhere.