The Miracle of Morning

Much like spring, morning symbolizes a fresh start and a hopeful feeling compared to what has come before. Gorman characterizes the morning with awakening, brightness, and burgeoning warmth. In this poem, morning is a miracle, meaning it is something spiritual that exists thanks to faith.

Gorman is purposeful at the beginning of the poem to open with the play on the words mourning/morning to show how the actual morning has power over the darkness of night. The morning drives out the clouds and the cold and brings life, humanity, and community. She returns to the image of morning in the fourth stanza when she again puns on mourning/morning. This time, the significance of the morning is the light it brings, and the metaphor here is that the people embody the light of the morning.

The final mention of morning comes in the final stanza where the morning now represents the passing of days. Each day is another step away from darkness and closer to brighter days. This poem uses morning to mean three things: a symbol of the hope that drives out darkness, a representation of the people who bring light to the world, and the passing of time from grief to strength.