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[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Based on an audience poll, this poem is the free epic for the March 7, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl having reached its $200 goal. It is spillover from the February 7, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] rix_scaedu. It also fills the "Blue Lace Agate - Speaking Your Truth" square in my 2-1-23 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem belongs to The Ocracies series.


"Of Mountains and Deserts"


In the high cold mountains
lies the Patriarchy of Darthalem,
a land of rocks and pines and goats.

In the low sweltering desert
stands the Matriarchy of Sherin,
a land of sand and palms and camels

The matter of mountains and deserts
is not easy to solve, since so many
differences fill the space between them.

If you live in the mountains, you don't need
a word for camel or sandstorm or oasis.

If you live in the desert, you don't need
a word for fish or blizzard or glacier.

Then how can you speak to each other
if you don't have the words, because
they can't be translated, because you
live in such different places that you
don't even see the same things?

It's not enough to learn the words
for fish or camel, you have to learn
what a fish or a camel even is,
and why it's important, when
you've never even seen one,
let alone had your life rely on it.

It's not enough to memorize
a quick description of what
a sandstorm or a blizzard is,
you have to understand all of
the different ways it could kill you
and why people are so afraid of it.

It's not enough to hear the sounds
that shape glacier or oasis and
to write out its name, you need
to know its life-giving nature and
how everything depends upon it.

How can you speak your truth
when a language has no words for it
and the listener has no experience
with which to grasp what you mean?

It is only with the help of interpreters
and translators that anything can get done.

For between the high cold mountains
and the low sweltering desert lie
the soft folds of moderate land;
between the Patriarchy of Darthalem
and the Matriarchy of Sherin lies
the Duarchy of Twale ruled
by duogendrous people.

It is they who construct
the circumlocutions that
describe things which exist
only in another environment,
like "scale-mailed water creature"
and "giant hump-backed scree goat."

They are the go-betweens in this
as in all things, visiting what they
can reach of both places and
learning what they can hear
of both languages, so they can
build bridges instead of barriers
that the three nations might
live more-or-less in peace.

The system is not perfect, but it
is good enough for going on with.

It keeps a little social lubricant
between the two extremes, which
cuts down on friction and therefore war,
which then enables a little bit of trade.

Perhaps, in time, the people will learn
enough of each other that they can
speak their truth and be heard.

* * *

Notes:

April 1, 2014 introduced the Duarchy of Twale (ruled by genderqueer people) in the soft folds of land between the Patriarchy of Darthalem (ruled by men) in the high cold mountains and the Matriarchy of Sherin (ruled by women) in the low sweltering desert.

"Temperate in Politics" (Duarchy)

"Casting for Answers" (Patriarchy)

"It Takes Three" (Matriarchy)

(no subject)

Date: 2023-03-17 10:25 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] acelightning73
This is why it's difficult to have meaningful conversations between people of different ethnicities - Black vs White, Hispanic vs Asian, women vs men, poor vs middle-class. They see the world through different sets of filters. UP here in the cold mountains, we want to make clothes out of fur and warm woolen fabric, to keep us warm. Down in the desert, we want woolen robes to help keep us cool in the blistering sunlight. Women want brighter streetlights in the parking area, to make us feel safer. Men want armed men patrolling the high-crime areas. Everybody tries to apply the solutions to THEIR problems to any other problems. The people in cold countries want to pump more petroleum and natural gas, and burn more coal to provide energy to keep their homes warm - and the people in the hot places want more energy for cooling. It's a good thing there are in-between people in between to help the others communicate.

(no subject)

Date: 2023-03-18 02:16 am (UTC)
readera: a cup of tea with an open book behind it (Default)
From: [personal profile] readera
💖💖💖

(no subject)

Date: 2023-03-19 02:35 am (UTC)
the_broken_tower: (Default)
From: [personal profile] the_broken_tower
Braiding Sweetgrass has pieces about Indigenous languages and how different the worldview is there. One of the early examples is 'bay' being a verb. It makes sense over here on multiple levels (how couldn't it?); the English perspective of bay-as-location also makes sense, from a different perspective. But I think the wiiksegamaa 'bay' is preferred.

People keep expecting more differences like that when they take local courses for other languages (that we've yet to really find in the common languages of Europe). Perhaps we aren't looking hard enough, or in the right places, or they may be blocked from beginner courses. There aren't many that teach from a linguistics perspective.

>> It keeps a little social lubricant
between the two extremes, which
cuts down on friction and therefore war,
which then enables a little bit of trade. <<

This reminds me a bit of what the Coastals are for the Island and Inland kingdoms. They're called an ambassador state - they act as a go-between between Islands and Inland, and let trade and communication flow where it wouldn't otherwise. The Islanders don't like associating with the Inland people, as I've heard. But they find the Coastals tolerable.

- Cross (he/him)

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