Mary Monday: The Poet With His Face in His Hands

a park, in winter, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

I’ve decided to start a new blog feature, “Mary Monday,” where I will feature an excerpt of a Mary Oliver poem with an accompanying photograph. I will probably branch out beyond Mary occasionally, but for right now I’m so thrilled by her poetry I think I could spend quite a long while focusing on just her oeuvre.

excerpt below from “The Poet With His Face in His Hands”

You want to cry aloud…
But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need any more of that sound.

So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across

the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets…

and you can stand there, under it, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed.