Early in the Morning

Early in the Morning

by Li-Young Lee

While the long grain is softening
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligrapher’s ink.

She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.

My mother combs,
pulls her hair back
tight, rolls it
around two fingers, pins it
in a bun to the back of her head.
For half a hundred years she has done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.

But I know
it is because of the way
my mother’s hair falls
when he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
when they untie them in the evening.

While looking for a special quote this week for a student graduating from High School, I came across this blessing:

   "May every sunrise begin with Promise,
     And every sunset end in Peace."

The poem by Li-Young Lee begins early in the morning. Two people, father and child, watch a mother combing her long black hair.  Long before the birds begin their day with morning song, the father and child hear the mother's "music of comb against hair." There is an expectation that in the evening, the father will untie those long locks of hair,  ending the day with love and peace.