The Important Message in Meghan Markle's Mother's Day Post

From Oprah Magazine

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle welcomed their first child together, a baby boy named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, on Monday, May 6.

• For Mother’s Day, the couple shared a too-cute photo of the royal baby’s feet on Instagram.

• In the caption, Markle managed to honor her bi-racial identity by citing a poem written by Nayyirah Waheed.

While the U.K. celebrates Mother’s Day on March 31, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recognized the Duchess’s American roots by sharing a Mother’s Day tribute on Sunday, May 12, in tandem with the holiday in the U.S.

The post came with none other than an adorable snap of royal baby Archie’s feet. It reads, “Paying tribute to all mothers today - past, present, mothers-to-be, and those lost but forever remembered.” And the caption also called out the fact that this is Markle’s first Mother’s Day.

But you may have missed a small but important detail in the caption: a poem, “lands,” written by Nayyirah Waheed. It reads as follows:

“my
mother
was
my first country;
the first place i ever lived.”

So why is this important? Well, Waheed is a Black poet, which means that Markle has once again used her platform and royal status to amplify the work of brilliant Black creators on a global scale. Earlier this week, to debut the royal baby at St. George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, Markle did just that by wearing a trench dress designed by Grace Wales Bonner, who is bi-racial.

Waheed keeps an extremely low profile. Her main website simply links to two books of poetry she’s published, salt., and nejma. But that doesn’t mean she’s not well-known. On Instagram, Waheed boasts over 743,000 followers and is celebrated for posting short snippets of her work, many of which are uplifting and focus on love, identity, and race. She also manages to do the same on Twitter, where she has over 146,000 followers.

One recent example from Instagram reads, “even if you are a small forest surviving off of moon alone. Your light is extraordinary.” Waheed shared that line from salt.

Waheed’s work is compared to that of author Rupi Kaur, who wrote milk and honey. Celebrities like Rowan Blanchard are fans of her work and she’s consistently labeled as one of many Black poets to pay attention to.

According to Up/Closed, Markle previously expressed an interest in Waheed’s work.

Clearly, Markle’s now using a major opportunity-the fact that all eyes are on baby Archie-to push Waheed's work forward.

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