Early in the Morning

Good morning! I think the early morn' is my favorite time of day - everything seem so fresh, and everyone around me seems wide awake and ready for a great day. I've always liked slightly windy mornings, and although that doesn't happen too often, I now have a new swing and I'm able to create my own swift wind in the chirping, bright morning. Now when I say everyone around me is wide awake, I'm usually talking about the birds and other animals, because most people that I know are horribly sleepy morning heads. Dedicated to this special morning, I'm posting a beautiful poem by Li-Young Lee

Early in the Morning

While the long grain is softening

in the water, gurgling

over a low stove flame,

the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced

for breakfast, before the birds,

my mother glides an ivory comb

through her hair, heavy

and black as a calligrapher's ink. 

She sits at the foot of the bed.

My father watches, listens for

the music of a comb 

against hair.

My mother combs,
pulls her hair back
tighter, rolls it
around two fingers, pins 
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