Poem help what are they saying?

Question

the poem i s called good night willie lee ill see you in the morning. by alice walker.:

looking down into my fathers

dead face

for the last time

my mother said without

tears,without smiles

without regrets

but with civility

good night willie lee ill see you

in the morning.

and it was then i knew that the healing

of all our wounds

is forgiveness

that permits a promise

of our return

at the end

thats the poem i kno the father is dead but what was the true thing the boy learned. what does forgiveness have to do with it? i need detailed analysis of what this poem is trying to say.

Answer 1

When his father died his mother forgave him for anything he had done because he had moved on to, the after life, or whatever you like to refer to it as, and she had no reason to hold anything against him anymore, and that she'd she him on the other side. The boy learned (or what I think he learned) that forgiveness is important, and that when his father died, by moving on he had been...released I guess, from his bad actions, they didn't matter anymore, and his mother realized that.

Answer 2

Alice Walker is brilliant, but I get the feeling she sometimes writes only for herself. What I think she is saying is that her mother forgave him for dying and whatever sins he had committed against her in his life. Death is the dawn of the next life, so she says "I'll see you in the morning." Ever heard "I'll see you on the other side" by Ozzy Osbourne?

Answer 3

Poems are very difficult to understand i believe that they're meant to be interpreted in many different ways. I feel that the poem does pertain to forgiveness but not the mother forgiving the father. I think she is trying to find comfort and forgiveness within herself so she can forgive the person who needs to be forgiven, I believe in the end that's what the son learned.

I'm not sure if that makes sense an example is like the father did something terribly wrong to the mother, the mother did nothing and just took the bad. Then she hated herself for so long that she couldn't forgive the farther as well as herself.

Eventually she did find forgiveness for herself in turn she was able to forgive the father as well. (Forgive yourself and you can forgive others)

But that's just my opinion, I hope you figure out what it means.