Black Sea Talks Back

“And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
 
they say you don’t choose your parents,
you don’t get to choose your name at birth,  
so they named me “Inhospitable”—harsh
and ratched, no home training, difficult to navigate,
visibility in society, lower than a hound dog’s belly,
because I hang out with a tribe of inhospitable savages.
 
You dumped and clogged my pristine waters
with your shyt, your ships, the hydrogen sulfide
miles deep, closed my eyes to blues skies, clouds
and swallows. I had very little oxygen,
I can’t breathe,
nothing lived or thrived in my ecosystem.
 
One day, a tribe known as the Greeks,
attributed to be most civilized and wiser
than my so called savage friends, decided
to clean me up for commerce, civilize me,
change my name to “Hospitable”--
say I am polite to tourists, bring prosperity
to countries along my borders: Russia,
Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine.
 
Ghosts of dead pirates told me that the Turks named me Black.
I can’t blame them. After all, I was black from the beginning,
​as darkness was upon the face of the deep
until I was separated from the firmament--
revealing my waters full of life.
 
Now, you are killing each other over my curvaceous
oval black body, the birth canal for your prosperity
and hegemony.
 
Give me a damn break, what breach, what breach you say.
 
Did nobody ask me who I belongs to
before you start this cantankerous cantakering
of nations about who owns me?
what do the rivers, her estuaries,
my bountiful supply, have to say about this?
 
River Danube, River Sakarya, River Supsa,
the whole lot of you!
                                   
​Do you hear me?
 
Black Sea Matters!