Had I Not Been Awake

Had I not been awake I would have missed it, 
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof 
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore 

And got me up, the whole of me a-patter, 
Alive and ticking like an electric fence: 
Had I not been awake I would have missed it, 

It came and went so unexpectedly 
And almost it seemed dangerously, 
Returning like an animal to the house, 

A courier blast that there and then 
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever 
After. And not now. 

 --Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), Irish poet, translator, and playwright, from Human Chain: Poems, 2011