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
Rainbird
Before the storm ended
the rainbird had tenderly
summoned the sun with a sharp
word of command and the
driving weather paused
trees steadied in the wind
as the slender song lifted
the dome of cloud and drew
light down to the earth's
wakening heart. Did you
not think the rainbird had
that power? It has not.
The storm has not ended
the bird did not sing and
your heart remains dark.