“And from there to the well, which is the well about which God said to Moses, ‘Gather the people together so that I may give them water.’ Then Israel sang this song, ‘Spring up, O well — sing to it.'” (Numbers 21:16-17)


The desert heat burns my face,
My bared shoulders and back,
My hatless head.
The dryness — as if coals from a bonfire char my throat
Each time I inhale.
As I walk barefoot atop an oven of desert rock and scorched sand,
The noonday summer sun
Blinds my eyes.

‘Is there water anywhere?
Or is water just a mirage?’

Till I stumble across a well —
Moses’ well —
And dive.

The ice-cold water
Soothes my skin.

I plunge deeper; lower;
For the well is a subterranean tunnel

To a vast underground ocean
Where I swim

Past endless coral reefs blossoming with crimson sea-anemones,
Past schools of porpoises that teach me their language,

Past innumerous flocks of blue whales grazing on fields of plankton
The way scholars pore over their tomes.

Somehow I breathe the sea effortlessly,
My lungs — the gills of mermaids.

As I descend yet deeper to meadows of turquoise-colored algae,
Herds of sea-horses accompany me,

Waving back and forth in the undercurrents, in the ocean’s deafness,
As if in sign-language, revealing their secrets to me

Before I swim back,
Before I return.

When I emerge from the well —
Moses’ well —

The sun has set;
And as the warm, arid air evaporates the water-drops on my skin,

I raise my eyes to the desert’s night sky
To discover, as I gaze in awe,

Thousands, no — tens of thousands of galaxies
Are spelling out the letters of my name.

………………………………………………………………………………

This poem, "Moses' Well," by Yakov Azriel, is taken from Yakov Azriel's book, SWIMMING IN MOSES'S WELL: Poems on Numbers (Time Being Books 2011), available on Amazon.