Poem: "Pranks and Shenanigans"
This poem came out of the November 1, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from janetmiles. It was sponsored by Shirley Barrette and Anthony Barrette. The setting is the Whispering Sands desert in my main fantasy world, Hallelaine; and the language in question is called Seshaa, which means roughly "the voice of the desert" or "the sound of wind over sand."
Pranks and Shenanigans
When a bandit lad
empties all the wineskins at a revel
and refills them with vinegar,
that's a prank.
When Waterjewel's best potter
makes a pot from a dozen kinds of clay
just to see if that's possible
and then dances nearly naked through a revel
with the pot balanced on its head,
that's a shenanigan.
The wind carries one word
for these two things:
wayan.
The desert remains
a collage of cultures divided
by a common language.