This is Episode 105 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "Vanity" by Kathryn Stripling Byer.

Kathryn Stripling Byer or Kay Byer, was an American poet, essayist and teacher who died in 2017 at the age of 72. She was State poet of North Carolina for five years until 2009 and published six collections of poetry, including 2002’s Catching Light, in which this poem appeared.

"Vanity" is just 69 words, but its brevity contains great depths. At first reading, for example, I missed the complexity of those first two words, Without hands. I’m still not sure what those words mean.

Overall the poem is, I think, a nuanced reflection on how we see ourselves as much as how we really are. Of course, I’m a man, and it is almost certain that this poem will connect in a much different way with a female reader. But still, the fruit of self-knowledge is available to all of us, if we dare.

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