Reference Points
Stranger within • Generation gap • Midwinter spring • Silent revolution • Trees, travelling • Under the wave • Magnolia • Augury • Four elements • Peacocks • Old house • Rainbird • Apocalypse
Histories
Historian • Portraits • The janitor • Ancestors • Yesterday's loss • Counter-revolution • Prayer of an elder • Robert Lowell • Social control • Waitomo • Parihaka • Rongopai
Myths and Emblems
Counter talk • The empty chair • The candle • Wave and shell • Increase and multiply • November 1978 • Rumpelstiltskin • Thumbelina • The swineherd • A Japanese tale • Solstice
Source: Out of Season: Poems. Wellington; New York: Oxford University Press, 1980
Electronic source: Out of Season: a TEI-conformant transcription
All poems © W. H. Oliver
Generation gap
Adult and child interrogate each other.
Their eyes are locked together as they pass,
strangers who know each other much too well
for either's good. One wonders if return
is possible, and then, of any help; the other
looks where he's going, hardly wants to go.
And more, should one contain the two he will
draw tight a line within and hold at each
hooked and barbed end a self he cannot loose
nor bring to hand. The line will never break;
child and adult hold each other captive.