When you are not surprised, not surprised,
nor leap in imagination from sunlight into shadow   
or from shadow into sunlight   
suiting the color of fright or delight   
to the bewildering circumstance   
when you are no longer surprised   
by the quiet or fury of daybreak   
the stormy uprush of the sun’s rage   
over the edges of torn trees
torrents of living and dying flung
upward and outward inward and downward to space
or else
peace peace peace peace
the wood-thrush speaking his holy holy
far hidden in the forest of the mind   
while slowly
the limbs of light unwind
and the world’s surface dreams again of night
as the center dreams of light   
when you are not surprised
by breath and breath and breath
the first unconscious morning breath
the tap of the bird’s beak on the pane
and do not cry out come again   
blest blest that you are come again   
o light o sound o voice of bird o light   
and memory too o memory blest   
and curst with the debts of yesterday   
that would not stay, or stay

when you are not surprised
by death and death and death
death of the bee in the daffodil
death of color in the child’s cheek
on the young mother’s breast
death of sense of touch of sight
death of delight
and the inward death the inward turning night
when the heart hardens itself with hate