Red-Winged BlackBird
Sometimes, what’s exquisite can only be touched by
common and obvious description, our tongues scrawling
in attempt to define what’s right there, in front of us,
robed in a red-brushed cloak, enthralled in song.
“What’s that red winged black bird called?” I asked.
“Red-Winged Blackbird,” said the man.
“Yes, that one over there” I pointed to one perched on
Tall Grass In Marsh.
“Red-Winged Blackbird,” he repeated “that’s its name.”
How directly we can name what we love.
Tall Tree Green Leaves. Upright Person Four Limbs.
Water Flowing On Land.
Closer to the divine than a facade of ennobled language.
Brown Animal With Antlers. Bright Ball In Sky.
Yellow Flower In Ground says so much more than
Sunflower or Dandelion.
It’s still alive, for one, and rooted.
***
Black Bear, At Last
It grunted down the mountain
an hour before dusk
a barely a hundred feet
a babbling creek
between us
the cricket’s night song quieted
by the crack of twigs
the scrunch of leaves
under its heavy clawed paws
I watched it disappear
into the pine trees
watched it emerge facing me
I want to tell you I stayed
I want to say I braved faith in
communicating
saying I am safe
teach me something
anything
fear spun me
back down the trail
stopping, listening
hoping I might catch
another glimpse
of the dark lumbering mystery
I might wake at last
in fright in love
to the certainty of my life
***
One less snake, they said
Twice now this week I’ve seen the serpentine
body looped and exposed on the road.
The second time it lay limp and half
flattened, its yellow and black scales
reddened by some speeding blindness.
Of course my heart ached, and not just
for the fact of sudden and violent death,
but for the cruelty of narrative and lore,
for those who celebrated in gladness.
Yes, venom and danger
– the hare and the fieldmouse agree –
but also beauty, and the promise of
shared, fated tragedy.
The first time was of a different sort.
It writhed on the right side of the freeway.
This one was alive still, and large,
and surged itself into one towering muscle
the instant we drove by, going eighty,
determined and hissing
above the deadening noise.
***
On Sharing a Life
The version of Country Roads I love the most
isn’t the original. It’s the one my lover plays
on the piano at random times throughout the day,
when maybe he thinks I’m not listening in my room.
But I perk up, every time, stop and pay attention to
the music flirting my ear from the other side of this
life we now share. Do you know how tender it is to
witness someone in their practice? How holy it feels
to bear testimony to the soul’s evolution? How could
we, the world I mean, act so bothered by each other?
Not be astounded by the presence of a beauty aching
to burst out in longing to be taken home, down God’s
own country, into the arms of the beloved, to the place
we ultimately belong.
***
History
I think about the history of things.
How the red rocks plateau into mesas,
having first floated underwater, then soared
above ground under the sun’s death kiss.
They could tell you of history’s mistakes,
the secret of life hidden deep in their scars
displayed proudly as nesting spots for the soft bodies
of animals. For pioneers that migrated under the silence
of shame, fleeing persecution, becoming the persecutors.
If you cracked them open, would you see your reflection
with enough love to power a world of forgiveness?
The history of cedar forests that grew from the sweet
scent of thyme, sumac and lemons, jasmines and gardenias.
Blood spilling into their roots in the name of Allah, of the
crescent moon and the cross that illuminated its branches.
For three thousand years they kept growing.
Grew stronger because of it. Grew out of necessity.
Grew because what else can you do but grow?
The sea shell and its smooth ridges, holding in it stories
of the ocean’s past. Held up to the shut ears of politicians,
could they hear its troubled cries?
We mistake blindness for the inability of our eyes to process
light. Color not registered in our sights, forgetting that the
prescription to see is etched behind the bars of our rib cage.
In the scars of the rocky skin. In the way a ripe peach drips
down your chin. It’s sweet nectar softening the ground below.
Moudi Sbeity is a first-generation Lebanese-American poet and transpersonal therapist, and the author of the forthcoming books Want A World (Fernwood Press, 2026) and Habibi Means Beloved (University of Utah Press, 2026). In a previous life, Moudi co-owned and operated Laziz Kitchen, a Lebanese restaurant in Salt Lake City. Moudi was also a named plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that brought marriage equality to Utah in 2014. As a person who stutters, they are passionate about writing and poetry as practices in fluency and self-expression. They call the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado, home.