What do Li-Young Lee " Early in the Morning" mean?

Question

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.

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

For centuries, a woman "put her hair up" both physically and metaphorically, every morning. Then she was usually seen with her hair down only by her own husband, occasionally her children. It was therefor a very erotic thing for a man to pull the pins out himself and let the curtain of her hair fall down. It was a possessive act, and a loving one. And you have heard the expression "letting her hair down" of a woman, meaning she got relaxed. Real uninhibited.

We did better when we had such private rituals. I kept my hair up pretty much all the time except at home when Steve was alive.

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thank u 4 your ans