Praise Song by Lucille Clifton

This poem is for Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex.  Her wedding was beautiful, a fairy tale come to life...a prince & his lady riding in a gorgeous horse drawn carriage---but the photos of her sweet mother sitting all alone in that long, empty family pew at the wedding was heartbreaking.  She looked sad, lost & lonely.  I wish they'd had someone, anyone sit with her... Surely Meghan could have found ONE or TWO cousins, aunts or uncles to accompany her mother?  :-(

Broken, weird, kooky families are everywhere, I know.  I come from one, have one, but I don't have the entire world watching me.  Most families have the occasional crazy aunt or the stray weird brother, but to have no one at all is, well, bizarre.  I say all this to share my favorite kooky relative poem by the magnificent Lucille Clifton.  I love her aunt Blanche, a real hardcore survivor --- xo

~÷~÷~÷~÷~

Praise Song
By Lucille Clifton

to my aunt blanche
who rolled from grass to driveway
into the street one sunday morning.
i was ten. i had never seen
a human woman hurl her basketball
of a body into the traffic of the world.
Praise to the drivers who stopped in time.
Praise to the faith with which she rose
after some moments then slowly walked
sighing back to her family.
Praise to the arms which understood
little or nothing of what it meant
but welcomed her in without judgment,
accepting it all like children might,
like God.