Hearth<\/strong><\/p>\n Peter, Magdalena, their fourteen children, Lights out, horse shifts its weight, <\/p>\n Maeve Henry<\/a>\u00a0lives in Oxford. She works in hospital administration and is currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes. Her work has been published in various places, including Mslexia, The Interpreter\u2019s House and Ink, Sweat and Tears. She was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition 2014 and 2015, and has been chosen as one of Eyewear Publishing’s\u00a0 Best New British and Irish Poets 2017. She is married and has three children.<\/p>\n Maeve Henry<\/a> was shortlisted for the 2016 Flambard Poetry Prize<\/a>. An anthology featuring more poems by 2016’s prizewinners is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hearth Peter, Magdalena, their fourteen children, heads bowed over mieliepap, give thanks to Ons Heer for the dry cave and the warm breath of their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[422,506],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2419,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions\/2419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nheads bowed over mieliepap<\/em>, give thanks
\nto Ons Heer<\/em> for the dry cave and the warm
\nbreath of their horse this winter night.
\nBeyond the trestles, barrels and the sacks,
\nan oil lamp\u2019s vapour makes the ochre line
\nof hunters dance on crooked limestone.
\nThe Boer spears ham on his clasp-knife\u2019s point,
\nwipes hands on immense tweed thighs and
\ndreams his farmhouse built, his sheep
\nalready grazing on the thorn veldt. Magdalena
\nbeds her babies down on the soft
\nsilt, storeys deep, and frets
\nfor the coloured maid from Danielskuil
\nthey can\u2019t afford to hire.<\/p>\n
\nand a child squalls,
\nthen quiet sleep enters the dark,
\nruns back and back into the koppie<\/em>,
\npast flint axe, past incised stone
\nto where the beginning
\nof mothers squats, crooning,
\nby newborn fire.<\/p>\n