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
Waitomo
Tena kotou tena kotou tena kotou tatou
that said the guide is a Maori welcome
happy to have you on board. Don't
touch the formations okay?
The boat slid over dark
water under glimmering
worms. And came back. Charon
helped us ashore. Not a coin
changed hands. Outside
high on an overhung ledge
the bones of a very old chief
are pale in the dark. Don't…
Jesus they'll never learn.