Li Young Lee

Li Young Lee - My Fave American Asian Poet from "Rose"
Current mood: artistic

Here's a poem that I always reread over & over again by one of my favorite Asian American Poet's Li Young Lee. It's a poem about his mother simply brushing her hair, getting ready in front of the mirror...very simple and not so simple at the same time. It touches on intimacy, more directly a child observing the intimacy between his parents. Enjoy...

Early in the Morning

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.

-- Li-Young Lee, ©1986. Reproduced from Rose with the kind permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.

Currently watching: House of Sand and Fog Release date: By 30 March, 2004