Vox Populi
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Timons Esaias: No Boat
There is no boat there
on Ararat’s strong shoulders.
Ignore the astronaut
and take my word.
There is no boat there
and no trees, either.
To the west, in a beautiful place for a palace,
is a palace
perched on a ledge above an ancient lake
that is not there;
its Arabian Nights’ windows looking
toward Ararat, snow-covered and glorious;
Its gates opening to a town
that is not there;
Its walls and towers protecting
a ruin.
I stood in a royal dining hall,
smell of diesel fumes carried on the breeze
detailed mosaic on the floor
intricate intaglio in the walls
snow falling through the roof
that is not there,
chairs, tables, crossbeams, trusses,
everything once wooden
gone.
Romans started it,
Turks finished it,
sheep keep it so.
Did men once worship trees?
Revere forests?
You would not think it, in
those mountains, whence
once upon a time
the finest ship timbers came.
There is no boat there,
No Noah’s Ark, if there was a Noah;
No Utnapishtim’s Ark, if there was an Utnapishtim;
No Ark of the Covenant, if a Covenant was ever made;
nothing made of wood, however sacred
however ancient,
nothing that could be burned
to make tea.
Romans, city-dwellers, sewer-builders, started it;
Turks, nomads, living hard lives mostly, ended it;
sheep, goats, horses
nibble at the rare seedling
denuding even the hope of forest
for their own needs.
Will the land survive the rising tide
of us?
Will we find some bond sacred?
Or will the fires continue…
Ask me this, and I will tell you
of the mountains of Ararat
of the trees
the Ark
and the covenant
that are not there.
““
~
Poem copyright 2025 Timons Esaias
Timons Esaias is a satirist, writer and poet living in Pittsburgh. His works, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in twenty-two languages. He is widely deplored for using a pillow as a protagonist. His Louis Award-winning poetry collection is Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek.
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Timons, after reading his whole anthology, has become my most favorite iconoclast! It is the pure artfulness of his speech and in his heart that draws my focus and deep regard.
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Thank you.
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Incantatory brilliance, the reading of this poem.
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I agree, Jim. No one writes like Esaias.
>
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Beautiful imagery, the magic of which, word-woven all, is that it is not really there. By a similar token wood is the rarest material in the universe; fields of asteroids harbor hordes of hidden gold and silver and rare earth elements, locked uselessly away like all that jewelry we sequester in vaults, and on Jupiter it rains diamonds. Meanwhile, there are no safe deposit boxes for forests, the rarest material in the universe.
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Lovely prose poem, Matt. Thank you.
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Thank you , Michael, for introducing me to another wonderful poet who appears to be there.
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Oh yes, Pittsburgh is chock-full of excellent poets.
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I wanted to say something on the same lines 🙂
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Good question, Timons, and glad you asked so beautifully. And the answer? not there.
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This took me back, Timons, to my visit to Dogubayazit and the view of Ararat. The countryside was arrestingly spectacular. There was a military build-up at the time. Turks? Kurds? And there was a palace that was not a palace. There was a big sky and colours in the earth. I recall writing a kind of reportage essay about it but there is no essay where there was once an essay….
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Ah, yes, the Ishak Pasha Saray, er, Palace. Loved it, and remember it vividly.
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never been here, but done that…
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And another favorite book on my shelf The Influence of Pigeons on Architecture by Timons Esaias ❤️
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Oh yes, a strange and delightful collection!
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