As The Crow Flies by Athina Vahla

Here she goes again,
on a hot summer afternoon
all dressed in black
and a green jade stone
on her chest.
Back to the north
6000 miles as the crow flies
looking ahead to Orion
leaving behind the Southern Cross.

Here she comes,
into winter’s dark
shutters down,
sunlight off.
35 000 feet
816 km/h
ground temperature 0ºC
another cup of coffee
a little pick me up
before she lands on her two feet
to grow her crow wings.

Athina Vahla is a choreographer who has been working in the performing arts field for 30 years. She lives and works between Greece, UK and South Africa, where she has been a lecturer and artist in residence at Rhodes University. Her work focuses on the limits of the body and the Greek concept of agon—struggle, conflict, and contest. She began writing poems as a child in Greek, her mother tongue, before that impulse gradually transformed into creating dance-theatre performances for stage. She returned to writing in 2024, during a course mentored by Robert Berold.