roar all you want and nothing will be disturbed

You want to cry aloud for your 

mistakes. 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 

 

like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that 

jubilation and water fun and you can 

stand there, under it, and roar all you 

 

want and nothing will be disturbed; you can 

drip with despair all afternoon and still, 

on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched 

 

by the passing foil of the water, the thrush, 

puffing out its spotted breast, will sing 

of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.

listen to it here

[Mary Oliver {1935-2019} 'The Poet with his Face in his Hands', in Solitude from Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets]