Ekphrasis: Her Expression
translated from the Greek by A. E. Stallings
The poor, maimed thing. And yet look closer, see—
How she’s flying, motion focused on
And concentrated all around her knee,
And balanced marvelously on the dawn,
Its coolness, in midair, above the clouds
At Heathrow, when the skies begin to clear.
It is her own expression that she shrouds.
Fleeing the very news that brought us here,
She bows her head. But look—how she alone
Is the beheaded one. It’s Time, she’ll say,
False prophet, that seeks flesh and gnaws the bone.
And yet I recognized her right away,
Seeing her here, Iris, the Rainbow, and
In that moment, we changed native land.
Η έκφρασή της
Η κακομοίρα, ανάπηρη· ωστόσο
κοιτάξτε την πώς ίπταται. Στο γόνυ
την κίνησή της όλη συγκεντρώνει
κι ισορροπεί θαυμάσια στη δρόσο
του πρωινού, μετέωρη στα ύψη
του Χίθροου, την ώρα που ξανοίγει
και πάλι ο καιρός. Για ν’ αποφύγει
τα νέα που μας έφερε, να κρύψει
την έκφρασή της, σκύβει το κεφάλι,
και νά! Καρατομείται μοναχή της.
Είναι ο καιρός, θα πει, ψευδοπροφήτης,
τη σάρκα συζητά και την προσβάλλει.
Μα εγώ εδώ τη γνώρισα, την είδα
την Ίριδα – κι αλλάξαμε πατρίδα.
Copyright © 2026 by Yiannis Doukas, translated by A. E. Stallings. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 30, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem is from Yiannis Doukas’s [The] Stendhal Syndrome (Polis, 2013), a book of ekphrastic sonnets that grapples with Greece’s economic crisis. ‘Ekphrasis: Her Expression’ is about the fragmented sculpture of Iris—the Rainbow and Messenger of the Gods—from the Parthenon’s West Pediment. Iris’s hovering torso resides in the British Museum: her head, discovered decades later, in the Acropolis Museum. The continued presence in London of the Parthenon sculptures removed by Lord Elgin remains controversial, particularly for Greeks. Twenty thirteen was a time when many Greeks had to go abroad for work, and this poem expresses torn feelings about belonging and identity.”
—A. E. Stallings
Yiannis Doukas
