Poetry Sunday: Bless Their Hearts by Richard Newman

"Bless his heart!" It's a phrase that is well known in the South, something we all grow up with. It is understood that you can say anything negative that you want to about a person, as long as you add "Bless his heart!" The magic phrase absolves you.

Imagine my delight then when I ran across this poem last week. I laughed out loud as I read. It just gave me one more thing to be thankful for.

Richard Newman - bless his heart!

Bless Their Hearts

by Richard Newman

At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add 

“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say 

whatever you want about them and it’s OK. 

My son, bless his heart, is an idiot, 

she said. He rents storage space for his kids’ 

toys—they’re only one and three years old! 

I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned 

into a sentimental old fool. He gets 

weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting 

on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came 

someone else blessed her office mate’s heart, 

then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts 

of the entire anthropology department. 

We bestowed blessings on many a heart 

that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart. 

Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting 

much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts. 

In a week it would be Thanksgiving, 

and we would each sit with our respective 

families, counting our blessings and blessing 

the hearts of family members as only family 

does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please

bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.