Adjarian Slides

 

The Batumi of chess is peaceful 
the swords crossed are sharp 
inflict pain, obtain victory 
wounds that heal soon enough

The Batumi of Adjarian history
I’ve not perused enough
and perhaps unobtainable
in the long history of civilisational discontent
where armies known and nondescript 
cultures and religions in flux 
stumbled in the dense mountains
drowned in the subtropical seas 
leaving remnants in language and custom 


And all the while the people 
encaptured but resistant 
watched over blood-letting time 
tended their mandarins, hazelnuts and vineyards 
while unblinking corn surreptitiously evaded invader
and identity stood its ground like potatoes 
unseen and yet unbowed

In the midnights and dawns
the Black Sea has broken 
grand planetary pieces 
crafts over aeons, and deposits 
polished pebbles large enough 
to etch poetry illegibly beautiful 
small enough to toss and lose 
in relentless tides

And I wonder what transcripts 
were made, left behind, torn and destroyed
by the Ottomans and Russians
in their brigandry and self-righteousness
what embraces where rejected or welcomed 
and where the progeny of Guria and Imeriti live today,

More than all this, the names of the land
commonly known and loved and sworn by 
before the Greeks shipwrecked them all 
in the deep harbour of time
and how amidst cataclysms 
there once was, still is and will be 
an Adjara of autonomies unscripted.

For now, I lock in on the 64 squares
geographies of the here and now 

To Adjara, I will return:
the study of histories and hysteria must wait.