Yehuda+Amichai's+Higher+Purpose

I have never been very interested in poetry, but I had so much fun analyzing this poem I am really starting to appreciate poetry differently. Yehuda Amichai's higher purpose, in my opinion, was to point out the different views of death. One, where you are directly related to it, and someone close to you or in your family dies and you are distraught. Two, where you are a child and someone dies, perhaps a friend of the family, or someone in your family that you didn't really know dies and your exterior shows sadness, but you are really indifferent because you just didn't know them well enough. Three, you are perhaps a tree or something that a tree might represent something, immovable, resolute, immortal, and you watch something die, apathetic because you have seen so many others die too. And finally four, you are the father of a boy who died in war, and you carry the weight of it as if you are pregnant with you son's dead body. Besides this depressing theme, Yehuda Amichai also maintains the refrain "behind this some great happiness is hiding", to signify that when death enters our lives it dominates everything, and hides happiness. The point is that death is with is in all of our daily lives, and that the great happiness is the happiness we experience on a daily basis.

Eddie - Insights are great, here. Really like the four possibilities you give for one's outlook on death, as seen in this poem. Great job unraveling all the layers.