Fragment 25

When the honey buzzards arrive, I am not prepared for it.

I have been walking all day, my body is tired, my mind blown empty from the north wind that has been blasting since morning.

But as I sit on the ledge outside the guesthouse looking at the horizon, I notice a darkening of the sky, a swathe of grey, uneven, speckled, as though painted by the fevered brush of an impressionist.

I stand up to get my binoculars, but there is no time. Within seconds, it seems, they are approaching, hundreds of them, just feet away from me.

Anxious to see it all, see them all, I lie on the ground and watch as they pass above me, white, black, brown, cream, brown, black, brown, white; so close I can count their primaries, can see their talons furled for flight, can see their talons press against their bodies by the sheer force of it. Some look young, taut, others older, battered, worn.

Every now and again, one will fly close enough to cast a weightless shadow over me, and, for a fleeting moment, it feels like the sky is touching me, like I too am flying.

 

 

Fragment 27

When solitary birds arrive, alone in the late morning, or early evening sky, they look like omens, harbingers, heralds of the gods.

Standing in a landscape where past and present are barely visible in fragile fragments that only tell part of a story—a house here, an ancient ruin there—time becomes larger, expanding into one all-encompassing space, free from the confines of chronology.

At times I feel like a seer, an apprentice prophet trying to learn the language of augury.

I think back to the stories that informed my imagination as a child, as a young woman; to Homer, to Euripides and Ovid; to birds as messengers, as vehicles of disguise, of redemption.

I think of Priam, Hector’s father, how when he saw an eagle flying through the city of Troy, his grieving heart grew hopeful for he knew his prayers to Zeus had been answered, that his request to ransom his son’s body back from the Greeks would be granted.

I think of Penelope, distrustful of the gods, trusting not the birds she saw in the sky, but those appearing in her own dreams as she slept.

I think of Philomela, ravaged and mutilated into eternal silence, transformed into a nightingale, singing at dawn.

I think of Leda.

 

 

*Forthcoming in 2026 from Vine Leaves Press (Athens, Greece), the full-length collection of 74 fragments: I Am Twig, Bone, Feather

“Set on the remote island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea, this haunting memoir by Angie Athanassiades reveals how the island became her sanctuary; and how the sea, the migrating birds, and the alchemy of time helped her heal from long-ago trauma. Lovely and lyrical, this book is a treasure.”

—Clare MacQueen, founding editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly

Angie Athanassiades

is a British/Greek memoirist, poet, essayist, and teacher. Her writing is inspired by nature, mythology, and art. Her essays have appeared in publications such as KYSO Flash and Serving House Journal, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net award, while her most recent poem, “Heather,” was anthologized in Look Away Now (Linen Press, 2025). Angie lives in Greece where she loves to walk with her dog in the forest and on the island of Antikythera, collecting twigs, bones, and feathers, and watching migrating birds. Her memoir, I am Twig, Bone, Feather, will be published by Vine Leaves Press in April 2026.

Author’s website: https://twigbonefeather.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “Boats Against the Current” by Angie Athanassiades reprinted in her blog, A Writer’s Life (25 September 2025); her essay was first published in Serving House Journal (Issue 10, Fall 2014).

⚡ “A Warbler’s Tiny Heart” (17 May 2025) in Angie’s blog

⚡ “The Antikythera Shipwreck”: an essay by Angie in KYSO Flash (Issue 1, Fall 2014)

⚡ “Lela’s Bones”: memoir in KYSO Flash (Issue 3, Spring 2015)