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
Four elements
Dragon-fly hovering over broken water
a stem of blue in the air wings
in the sun making fire. Four elements.
Oyster-catcher walking the hard sand
sharp against the sun's track over
evening sea, bright darkening gold.
Child quick and shining in a garden
when the flowers glow before dark
bright as the sun on high branches.
A face any woman's or man's intent
at love or prayer or rest gathering
threads of circumstance carefully together.
Images of power and precision fixed
for a moment and leaving the world empty.