On A Statue of Echo

 

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Archias, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 154

Just look at that marble face! She
could be anyone at all, hail
lady well met as they say, one
bland visage among a dozen
in a high school yearbook.

Greet her: she greets you back;
if you are curt, she is abrupt:
if you are garrulous,
she chatters on and on.

No name is carved on pedestal,
no clue to her proud parentage.
Boyish, yet no Amazon, she
has not the huntress pose, no spear
nor bow nor scabbard adorn her.

No scar of battle mars her limbs.
A temptress, then, nobody, and
nameless, no more than a nodding
acquaintance at best, who is she?

Echo she is, Pan’s companion,
the yearned-for one, the comforter
of lone shepherds, who loves them back
but from a distance, safe.

She makes false coin of your own voice,
and pays you with her empty words.
I’ll leave you here with her. I know
you’re smitten. Pour out your own soul
and smile at how the lady gets
the ups and downs of your troubles.

Cheap therapy, and never drunk,
she may be just what the doctor ordered.
Her eyes are blank. No matter what
you say, she never disapproves.

The sculptor makes copies, I’m told,
so you can even take one home.
But as for me, I made short work
of my relationship. I said,
“Get lost!” The statue said the same,
and I was done with the affair.