He sat beside the well With rope-burned hands and patient eyes He did not ask my name He did not ask me why He lowered down the bucket I heard it hit the dark The water came up shining Like a question with no mark And he held it out to me Like the simplest kind of prayer The kind that doesn't need a god Just someone standing there Drink, the well-keeper says With hands instead of words Drink and keep on living You are worth the water's work Drink, the well-keeper says The well does not ask why It only knows the ones who thirst It only hears them cry His clothes were sun-bleached linen His shoes were made of tire He'd built a small stone shelter With a salvaged solar wire He offered me dried apricots And almonds from a jar He pointed toward the mountains Where a village glowed like char And he smiled like someone who Had given up on being saved But not on saving others From the distance and the grave Drink, the well-keeper says With hands instead of words Drink and keep on living You are worth the water's work Drink, the well-keeper says The well does not ask why It only knows the ones who thirst It only hears them cry I wanted to tell him That I had walked the entire coast That I had written letters in salt That I had been my own ghost But instead I drank And the water tasted like The first true thing In a hundred miles Well-keeper Well-keeper Your kindness was a country I was not prepared to enter
