L'anniversaire. (Translation) . Poem by Michael Walker

'The old man' is a very common colloquial expression in New Zealand for one's father. His father is looking grayer on his fifty-seventh birthday, at home with his extended family who are celebrating the event. It is a small matter as far as history goes-the same knives, cups and faces as in previous years. It is 'a minor festival of little people' poised between the years to come; but the future is like a wave at the end of the world, which will rise like a tsunami and drown them along with the cutlery and faces who say, in spite of the skies that fall 'our father'. It is an unexpected disastrous ending to what seemed like a commonplace birthday party. The first two stanzas deal with the everyday birthday party: the third and fourth stanzas are quite different and ominous. It is like destruction of the family and each reader can work out exactly what it is.
This poem was included in 'Best Poems of 1958' in U.S. Poetry Awards (Borestone Mountain) . It is a high-class poem.