The Poet Thanks Artificial Intelligence 

At last, gone with this long held belief that 
what makes us special, what makes us human, 
what makes us us, is our intellect. How we parse 
and gather and categorize the world to make 
sense. How we chant the gospel of production 
and convenience, the virtues of perfect and never 
enough. How we tool and build, and build what 
builds and supersedes our common ignorance. 
Now we know, beyond abundance and efficiency, 
of pain and consciousness; the bleeding kind. 
Now we know of empathy; the reaching kind. 
Now we see, real as the code on our screen, 
what it means to sing just because. What it 
means to wail, because love. What it means to 
arrive into our bodies, nestle close to our hearts, 
trembling and praying as we always have, as we 
always will, no matter the power of our thinking, 
in face of the enormity we still do not know.

- Moudi Sbeity

I should make clear that I am in no way celebrating AI. I am very much concerned about the abuse of natural resources to power mass scale data centers, not to mention the abuse of our attention. Though I do not feel very despondent about it, as I don’t feel despondent about most things (perhaps I’ll share later about this). As with most things, I recognize the benefits of AI when used appropriately, and how utterly destructive it us when not used appropriately. Still, I find it affirming that we can now set down this idea that our thinking minds define us as unique among the kingdom of the living. The intellect certainly has its value, but it is not our only or most defining quality. Caretaking and empathy, for example, as with the appreciation of beauty and the ability to awe at the unknown, these are qualities I very much value in this human experience.

📚Join me on August 15th from 10 - 12 MDT for a Book Tour Workshop / Fundraiser. I’ll be reading from my forthcoming books, offering prompts, and then opening up space to share. Sign up here: https://habibialhamdulillah.eventbrite.com

Taylor and I watched Toy Story 5, and you bet we cried through it. There isn’t a single animation we have watched and not cried through. This is just one of the tender moments we share together, among many others as described in the poem. I feel lucky that in this lifetime God sent me someone like him to love and be loved by.

🙏 Thank you to all who signed up for my Book Tour Workshop / Fundraiser, and for those who reached out privately to contribute.

📚If you are willing, please join me on August 15th from 10 - 12 MDT. I’ll be reading from my forthcoming books, offering prompts, and then opening up space to share. You can sign up here: https://habibialhamdulillah.eventbrite.com

How fortunate to even say that I have two books coming out this year: Habibi Means Beloved (memoir) & Alhamdulillah Anyway (poetry: cover and pre-order for this book coming very soon). This alone is a dream. So is touring with them. I believe in the message and heart of these books, and hope to offer them as part of larger conversation about awakening, awareness, and the reminder of ourselves and each other as beloved.

As a new author, and recent graduate, the logistics of this is greater than I can do alone. Many generous folks have offered places to stay and helped organize events in their cities, all of which I have agreed to. As challenging as it is for me to do, I am asking for your support in raising $5,000 to fund travel expenses and the ability to be away from home and work for about a month. In the spirit of reciprocity and community, I’m hosting a poetry and writing workshop for just this purpose. I’ll be reading from my books, offering prompts, and then opening up space to share. You can sign up and register for the event here: https://habibialhamdulillah.eventbrite.com

If you feel moved to contribute but cannot attend, you can still register on Eventbrite. This will be recorded and shared. If by chance you are moved to contribute a larger sum, please do so on Venmo— @moudi-sbeity

In deep gratitude for your confidence and encouragement 🙏

Register Here

Here are some of my confirmed and tentative tour dates. I’ll be traveling throughout the western United States in early 2027. Boulder, CO folks - details coming soon. There will be various online events as well, soon to be announced.

Some of the Utah Events

• Oct 9 - Book release party in SLC

• Oct 17 - SLC Bookfest

• Oct 23: Under the Umbrella Bookstore

Some of the Non-Utah events, west of CO, mostly

• Oct 19 - 21: Tucson, AR

• Nov 3: Austin, TX - at The University of Texas

• Nov 9 & 10: Durham, NC

• Nov 12 - 14: Kent, Ohio. I’ll be there for the Poets for Science conference.

• Nov 15 - 20: Still in the works: Vermont, New York City, Baltimore.

• Nov 21 - 24: Boston, MA.

Love All of Creation

On the final day, when I stand before the Lord
I will be asked, “Did you love all of my creation?”
Who can lie to the all knowing intelligence?  
I will say, “Not always, but I tried.” 
“Good” the Lord will say. Then, 
“Did you see the other as yourself?” 
And I will reply, “Not always, though I tried 
to see all as none other than yourself.” 
“Good, good” the Lord will say, 
“and did you cause harm to any life?” 
What else can I do but kneel and cry? 
“It was out of ignorance, though I tried always 
to be aware.”

“Tell me, did you change your ways once you learned?” 
“To the degree that I awakened, oh Lord.”
“And are you awake now?” The great spirit will want 
to know. And I will say, “I still carry fear in my heart, 
you of all would know this.” 
“No matter” the Lord will surely say, “no matter.”

“Just tell me again, did you love all of my creation? 
Did you love yourself as you love me?” 
And my tongue will be heavy with truth, and it will 
not be able to speak anything but, and I will say 
“No. I did not.”

Here is when the benevolent creator will begin to weep, 
and weep, and weep, saying “forgive me, forgive me,
forgive me.” And I will say,  
“What for, Beloved? You are the beginning and the end, 
the all merciful, the all compassionate. You are all.”

And the Lord will not say why, and then vanish back 
into the mystery, and become once more the sun and 
the wind, the leaping rabbit, and the hawk who now 
swoops down to eat it.

- Moudi Sbeity

I thought about including a description of how this poem came about and what it means to me, but I figure why not have it be an intimate and unique conversation for each person. However you interpret it is what it is meant to be.

Western Tanager

If the mid-hour dawn 
were given wings, 
certainly it would rise 
as the western tanager, 
what with that blush 
orange face, that 
bright yellow chest, 
those night wings 
trailing.

- Moudi Sbeity

The first time I saw a western tanager is this summer. Twice in one week. I thought I was hallucinating to see a bird as bright and colorful in Boulder, and instantly fell in love. I’ve been on the lookout since.

Another poem below about the robins I watch in my backyard while having lunch. Watching how a robin plays with worms, flinging and throwing them, is distressing to say the least. Just eat it! I want to yell at them, but what good would that do? So I say a little prayer for the worms.

The Robin

Here comes the ochre 
breasted maestro 
conducting his beak
in the grass 
this way and that, 
then hopping 
from patch to patch, 
then flying in victory, 
both audible and evident, 
to the nearest branch—
               oh terribleness
               oh joy
               oh satisfaction
—an earthful of pleasure
wriggling in his mouth.

- Moudi Sbeity

The Wrong Story
           If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, 
           leave - Mo Willems

It will happen. 
One day you will find yourself standing 
in the middle of your only life, 
and recognize, at last, you are living in 
the wrong story. 
You might notice that not a thing around you 
has changed. You might notice that 
the world still goes on with its urgency, 
with its desperate cries, but you, 
even if having awoken just a little, 
are no longer satisfied with whatever purpose, 
or the illusion of it. 
What once was familiar is now strange 
and walled, and empty of fresh air. 
An awareness will grow louder with insistence—
This is no longer your life. Walk out, leave. 
Do not despair what you know you must do. 
Do not deny the swiftly moving river. 
Take only what is essential:
a notebook, a pen, the dignity of your own 
ground, and begin anew, perhaps not 
for the first time, perhaps 
not for the last time, and write 
yourself forward, 
even though you do not know 
where the path will lead. 

- Moudi Sbeity

The quote in the epigraph is from a children’s book titled Goldilocks and The Three Dinosaurs. I first learned of it at the River Writing table in Studio 9A in Salt Lake City. If I recall correctly, it was painted on the wall. This is one of those quotes that has lived with me since. It helped me drum up the courage to leave the restaurant I once had and the life that came with it, and it has helped me step out of narratives I no longer wanted to be in. It turns out, it is that easy. You can write a completely new story with the same set of characters and conditions, and as you do, they too will change. Like this you find that you have written yourself into a new story. Our power and choice and will is in this, that we can rewrite the narrative of who we are from the ground of our existing life.

This picture was taken in Salt Lake City at City Creek trail. I was showing a lover my favorite tree (to the left) and he snapped this as I crossed back over. I sat in this tree often to contemplate my departure from the life I’d built, and even after, just to watch the creek and write. This tree holds a special place in my heart.

Upcoming Events
🪷 In Praise Of: Impermanence on Saturday July 18 from 10 - 12 MDT.
Write yourself into a new story of loss, change, and impermanence. We’ll discuss and explore poems, and write towards this most persistent of truths, and see just what kind of wisdom we can find. This will be recorded if you’d like to watch but cannot attend.

Denver Pride 5K

Of course I wanted to come in first.
But that’s besides the point. By a mile
and a half I slowed down, significantly.
Colors streamed all around me, green 
hair and pink tutus, rainbow flags on 
strollers, the one woman with a pride 
cape flapping behind her. Soon enough 
I came to a halt, then walked for a good
minute before picking up to the finish 
line – 27 minutes. Not first, but among 
the throngs of people cheered on with 
signs that read you are loved and pain is 
temporary, celebrating every person that 
passed by. And it did not matter what 
we wore or how fast we were or what 
we looked like. Here we all ran through 
the streets as one body, spectacular and 
glowing, a spectrum of light that kept its 
living colors running, and did not stop.

- Moudi Sbeity

I wanted to share this poem before too much time had passed.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a Pride event, but this year felt different because of a personal connection to a growing family. Funny to watch how our habits and interests change as we grow. My rowdy days are mostly behind me, but a 5K with loved ones and a picnic afterwards? Count me in!

Upcoming Events
🪷 In Praise Of: Impermanence on Saturday July 18 from 10 - 12 MDT. We’ll discuss and explore poems, and write towards this most persistent of truths, and see just what kind of wisdom we can find. This will be recorded if you’d like to watch but cannot attend.

After I’m Gone

I will miss the stutter of the creek, 
the seen and unseen mouths that kissed it. 
I will miss the contentment of the slow 
and hoofed, which never belonged to me; 
not the slow, not the hoof, certainly not 
the contentment. The scripture of clouds, 
the poetry of soil. Trees in their 
constellations, their many shades of hope, 
and so the many shades of star light. 
Not to mention the orchestra of birds,
their determined song. 

With what generosity did you dream this 
up, beloved? 

I can make amends, so long as I am still here. 
I can ask for forgiveness, so long as I am still 
alive. I can still be taken into the arms of awe. 
I’ll miss the mystery, the proof of body and 
Earth. I’ll wish to have loved it more;
the body, the Earth, certainly the mystery.

Start today, said the mountain, who heard my 
thin sorrow. Trust me, I have seen the erosion 
of joy. Kneel your desire to the ground while 
you still can.

- Moudi Sbeity

I was camping near a creek at a retreat last summer when this poem came. Watching water flow on helps me drop into a contemplative place, which for me often means thinking of what it means to be alive within the enormity of existence, grappling with my past, and at last recognizing the beauty and truth of transience. Who wouldn’t hear a mountain speak when having entered such a state?

Upcoming Events
🪷 In Praise Of: Impermanence on Saturday July 18 from 10 - 12 MDT. We’ll discuss and explore poems, and write towards this most persistent of truths, and see just what kind of wisdom we can find. This will be recorded if you’d like to watch but cannot attend.

The Very Breath

You say you want to know 
Allah, want to at last feel 
glory wash through you
like a fountain of light.
Have you felt yet divinity 
tickle your nostril hairs? 
The plume of oxygen 
filling your lungs, hugging
against your ribs, traveling 
through every aperture of 
vein as one ecstatic entering, 
as one dissolving release, as 
the way your breath keeps 
rising and falling, keeps 
heaving itself into and 
out of your living gaze.

- Moudi Sbeity

A Sufi mystical interpretation of the word Allah says the everything nothingness found within a single breath. God, Allah, any name that suits you, the divine mystery, exists all within one breath. Here is a little excerpt from my book Habibi Means Beloved:

A good reminder the next time you find yourself in the story of separation. Here is God, going in and out of your nose as the breath.

Here are the links for the interview, one for Youtube and one for Spotify, though you can stream it anywhere podcasts are streamed. And please explore the many heartfelt episodes at by Rev Annalouiza & Rev Wakil. It heartens me to know there are so many of us poets, reverends, artists, mindfulness practitioners, dancers, and lovers (this list is definitely not complete) devoting ourselves to the beauty of this one world.

How Do You Do It?

That thing where you arrive into your life 
carried by kindness. How did you walk 
along the ledge of sorrow without falling in? 
And if you fell in, what did you find? 
I’ve been wondering about all the ways we
survive, all the things people do to adjust 
and skirt and catch a breath, the way 
everyone is managing both to rest and 
become. Most days I dream of the end, 
the final moment, when providence lifts 
the soul out of the body. It is a kind of 
grace that we don’t live forever, don’t you
agree? Maybe even the surest marker of 
grace. But until then, I would like to know
—how do you stay awake given all this? 
What keeps you moving from one moment 
to the next? What has sustained your love 
for the world?

- Moudi Sbeity

How do you do it? Asking for a friend.
I don’t usually offer writing prompts, but if you are in the mood to write, you might write to the question “how do you do it?” or “what keeps you moving from one moment to the next?” or “what has sustained your love for the world?” Share your lived wisdom. We’ll all benefit.

Upcoming Events
🪷 In Praise Of: Impermanence on Saturday July 18 from 10 - 12 MDT. We’ll discuss and explore poems, and write towards this most persistent of truths, and see just what kind of wisdom we can find.

Many Ways to Say Goodbye

We just never know if we’ll see each other 
again. This is what our language tells me. 
This is why we say God be with you.
This might be why we bid drive safe, 
and be careful out there whenever someone 
leaves off in a car. Or else bon voyage 
and safe travels when traveling far.
As if the person plans to get hurt. 
Don’t die, we mean to say, please stay alive.

Do we ever truly leave each other? 
Do we ever completely vanish to warrant 
a good bye? Perhaps it's better to say 
talk soon, just to will and intend it,
hope to see you again.

And if we really know it, if we really know 
we will never again meet in the same way, 
we might say it’s been a pleasure, friend, or 
grace be on your journey, may the road rise.

And in those times when we know what 
we know, given fate and circumstance,
and the promise of time and age, 
we might say 	     
              see you down the old road. 
We might say 
              catch you on the other side. 

- Moudi Sbeity

Join me for In Praise Of: Impermanence 🪷 on Saturday July 18 from 10 - 12 MDT. We’ll discuss and explore poems, and write towards this most persistent of truths, and see just what kind of wisdom we can find.

Causes & Conditions 

We'll never know why, or how, the aspen tree 
near the retreat center grew horizontally across 
the creek, dug itself into the other side of the bank. 
Or how the hostile man with the ink of enmity in 
his heart became just that, and of who did or did 
not love him. What happened so that some people 
grew stone cold, so that they woke into their bodies 
with a malicious discontent. So many things happen 
in a life, so many ways a seed can grow, or not grow. 
I have lived enough to know as much— each is a 
world, a universe, a constellation of pains and joys. 
Each is a suffering being worthy of our compassion, 
regardless. So, what is left to do but forgive everybody, 
and I mean everybody, by which I mean everybody. 
Do not stoop to hateful accusations, no matter the 
circumstance. Don’t become a victim of ugly language.
Do not let the causes of ignorance create conditions 
that corrode your loveliness. Instead, say beautiful 
things, say true things, speak wisely. Love everyone, 
remembering; no such thing as other. There is only 
the part of you that can react or respond. There are 
the causes of ignorance or the conditions of awareness. 
It doesn’t matter just how you arrive at this insight; 
a poem, a prayer, some difficult loss. All that matters 
is that you awaken, that you become someone who 
speaks the language of wholeness. 

- Moudi Sbeity

I am seldom appalled by things, what Trump says or does for example. Not even by large scale, live-streamed genocide. It is not that I am not paying attention. It is not that I am not engulfed by a simmering grief. It is just that all of this is not appalling. It’s just not new or shocking, though it is sad and heartbreaking that we could be so hardhearted to create such conditions. I could be a place where the continuation of these conditions end.

I say this because I am disheartened also by our reaction to things, as I see on social media platforms and the use of ugly language. Not just from those we perceive to be on the other side, but also from those who align with our social and political views. Words are creationary. They are seeds of meaning, and then grow to become action, and then grow to define the world we live in.

The less reactive I am to every bait hooking my attention into indignation, the more I am able to attend to what needs to be done; care for myself and my community, advocacy that works, protest that sings — never once losing sight of the forgiveness, compassion, and ever widening mercy necessary to move beyond this story. I can at once stand to speak truth, defend life, and demand accountability, and not stoop to becoming an agent of the very violence trying to root in me. What will it take to become aware and mature in our behavior?

I want us to be wiser and more skilled. I believe that we are wiser and more skilled. I believe there is a seed of awareness inside of us, indefinite in its patience as it has been, waiting for the moment we choose to see with our real eyes.

Lady Liberty

What have they done to you?
Speak, for the sake of justice, speak. 
Even if they have grafted 
your tongue from its wailing bowl, 
speak. Make a sound, 
anything.

- Moudi Sbeity

Pledge of Kindness

I pledge kindness 
with one hand 
raised to my heart.
And to the possibilities 
for which it stands.
One planet
under the stars,
      interdependent
on liberty and justice
             for all.

- Moudi Sbeity

I wrote Pledge of Kindness a couple of years ago or so. It’s part of a second collection (already with a publisher) I have put together that addresses the current political landscape against the backdrop of this enormous and vast existence. I’ll keep that under wraps until after my first collection is out (patience, my heart, patience). Perhaps today you can take this pledge to be kind to all, and I mean all, not just those you agree with. Exclude none. This is how the world moves forward. With enough persistence the heart is sure to awaken, but we must be stalwart in our commitment to kindness, excluding none. Keep seeing the inner brilliance hidden behind every name.

May today offer you pause and reflection on how to keep championing the vision and belief in justice and equality for all. Whether through reparation, confession, and policy correction on the national level, or in the small ways we treat everyone, and again, I mean everyone. The sooner we can break down the illusion of division, the more possible it is that we see ourselves out of such unnecessary suffering. Maybe this sounds too simple. I don’t know what else makes sense.

Here is another poem I wrote about the Statue of Liberty - Verdigris.

I say it perhaps more than a hundred times a day, to the human and more-than-human alike. It occurs to me that maybe I should say it less, only so that it doesn’t lose efficacy, in the way when you say I love you again and again it begins to feel more like an addiction rather than honest expression. The economist says “diminishing returns.” The tenth I love you does not feel as ecstatic as the first, neither does the tenth kiss.

When I had a restaurant, I thanked everyone at every turn: the cook for bringing the burger patty, the dishwasher for replenishing the ramekins, the servers for taking plates, the customers for coming in, again. It never felt inauthentic, or diminished. I may not be able to stomach the seventh slice of pizza, but the millionth thank you still enters me just as the first, springs from within with equal and sustained earnestness. There is so much to thank, after all. So much to be grateful for, to appreciate the benefit of. So with this I’ll say it again, innumerable at this point — thank you.

Thank you for being so kind, for that delicious word, for your open palm, your open heart. Thank you for sharing, for listening, for witnessing. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for caring. Thank you for thanking me. Thank your mother, thank your father, even if they haven’t been perfect. Especially because they aren’t perfect. Thank your feet, if you have them. Thank your eyes, if you have them. Thank even if you don’t. Thank the ways you learned to adjust, the way you cultivated new abilities. Thank you tongue, even if you stutter. Thank you mind, thank you breath, thank you trees, thank you mud, thank you sun. Thank you long long shadow. Thank you for hurting me. Thank you for holding me. Thanks for your increase, for singing, for authenticity. Thanks to discernment, to vows, to integrity, to covenants. Thanks to falsehood, to lying, to weakness. Thanks God, this day, this life. Thanks for everything. Thank the stars that constellate. Thank you for persisting, nevertheless. Thank you for opening your heart, despite every reason not to. Thank you for bringing it all: joy, rage, ennui, excitement, sorrow, attentiveness, the way you hold me when I read, the way you let me read to you. Thank you for possibility, for language, for the fear which can sometimes be larger than love, for the love which prevails, always prevails.

- Moudi Sbeity

It is incredible what some silence and lots of creekside time can do. Taylor returns home Saturday. I am feeling much more at ease, and prepared to slowly step back out into the social world. Thank you for your witness and words of encouragement. I’ll be back to sharing poems more regularly, beginning with one on the fourth of July as a somber celebration of this country to which I also belong to and love.

The image above brings me so much joy. I hope it also brings you joy. Deep bow from the raccoon in me to the raccoon in you.

If you’re around the morning of July 18, I’d love to see you for In Praise Of: Impermanence 🪷

The Village House

The village house is old, 
but the arches still stand like the ready 
wings of a bird that could lift the stone 
temple to the sky. We stood under them 
on the veranda overlooking the garden, 
peace smooth ringing along their flutter, 
an invitation to walk through and again 
find ourselves sitting under the olive trees,
embroidered blankets spread between us, 
passing trayfuls of figs and stories. 
Sung Arabic lingering in droplets on our 
lips from the hope we poured into small 
glass tea cups. The arches have begun 
to crumble, resembling nothing more than 
clipped wings. Now that peace has fled 
the country. Now that the olive trees 
have been uprooted. And no one 
gathers in the garden anymore. 
No one is there to sing. 

- Moudi Sbeity

This is one of our homes in the now uninhabitable village. I belong to two homes in Qaaqaait Al Jisr, a village in the Nabatieh governorate in southern Lebanon. One of my maternal grandparents, one of my paternal grandparents. As it so happens, my parents are second cousins. This means my grandfather (my mother’s father) and my grandmother (my father’s mother) are first cousins. My parents grew up in Qaaqaai’, as did their parents, and their parents’ parents.

We have been there for as long as we can remember; plowing fields, herding sheep, leading donkeys in that soothing sound of clacking up the hill and down alleyways. Tradition has survived in a place, in a world, where little tradition survives any longer. Still there is the spice shop with their large barrels, and the corner bakery, and the grocer with plastic crates at the side of the road. Still people walking up and down the street with black plastic sacs and open-toed shoes, casual greeting one another. Still the bustling of the locals, the buzzing of community, the aromatic welcomes steaming from every open doorway, the minaret’s call to prayer, the village wide prostrations.

Each of my grandparents’ village home has a garden full of fruit trees, including an olive grove, figs, and loquats. We drove south every Sunday for barbecue gatherings at my paternal grandparent’s home, all eight siblings and their children in tow, trayfuls of rolled grape leaves and stuffed kibbeh meatballs passed around as appetizers. Us children grabbed handfuls while running around the garden, or else at the nearby Litani river, a river repeatedly threatened with poisonous chemicals by Israel.

It is a curious to me now that I resented the village during my childhood years, avoiding what seemed to me then as a stifling lifestyle of routine, and predictability. I refused to love this part of me. Refused to love this land and its people, our customs. Though no matter how far I ran, in my blood was—is—the history and lineage of this very land. Now that I am near the hill of forty, which some say is the beginning of wisdom, now that I have settled into myself with a little bit more clarity, now that the village and the land and the people are under the threat of annihilation, I can no longer deny the great tug of return. I cannot deny this upswell of appreciation buoyed by grief. It is not only now that I have felt this, of course. Leaving my homeland at eighteen and establishing life away on land stolen and defiled—this is enough to reorient perspective (Note: I was evacuated from the 2006 war and have since lived in the Rocky Mountain region). This is made all the more searing today, like a blade into the jugular, by the vain ignorance of a people yet to know the living twitch of compassion in their hearts. I speak of the Israeli governing body and current day active settlers.

I have entertained, off and on throughout the years, a return to the village. I see myself older and in utter happiness, walking to the corner bakery, walking into the garden, gathered by the young, reading poetry. Fantasies are good for one thing; to affirm your place today on the right path toward a hoped for future. The possibility of this, of living in the village, is simply not so, and for many reasons. Chief among them being the war, and my unconventional lifestyle, as some might still call it. But things change. Cultural norms evolve, societal ideologies progress. A great many waves of spiritual maturation washes over people. And war, one hopes, sees its end. The topsoil restores its health. Communities again emerge in a vigorous and robust thrust of liveliness. But who can say, given the rhetoric today, and the images I’ve seen, the videos, of the destroyed and fractured country.

When I discussed the destruction on the phone with Baba, he said “alhamdulillah, the stone is still standing. Furniture and windows can be replaced. But the house stands.” He runs a furniture gallery and woodshop, so this makes sense. He’d also recently begun to build his own house right next to his parents’ village home. When I discussed the destruction with Mama, she said “let them destroy every stone but they will never take the land. All will be rebuilt. What does a house compare to the lives of people?” This is as any good an indication of the difference between my parents, long divorced, not on speaking terms. Neither of them are wrong. Neither is better in their thinking. Each has their own perspective and depth.

Mama says she has one worry about her life. Due to the violent conditions there now, those who have been killed have not been buried in the village. Instead, they are embalmed in holding cells until a proper funeral can be orchestrated. And they are orchestrated, with a great many people wailing down the street, and the feeding of the whole village, and the proper prayers. She says she does not want to be embalmed. She wants to be right next to her father and grandmother. She wants to return to her one true home in southern Lebanon, held by the sanctified ground. She is a woman who loves her heritage, a patriot to the soil. As such she has refused to flee during the war, even though she could. She has refused to find safety, and would rather, in her words, die a martyr, to mean a witness, to her land.

When people speak of love for the land, this is what I think: the desire to become part of its soil. We use no coffins. Just a white cloth to wrap the body, and the promise of compost.

During this war, and during every war with Israel whether on Lebanese or Palestinian territory, the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) have spread phosphorus over the land, and intentionally destroyed tree groves. Someone who loves the land would not poison it, would not be so calculating in defiling it. I can only conclude that they do not love the land, as in they do not care for its health and viability. They covet the land. They see it as an object to own. We see it as a living being, a place of tending, worthy of our relational care.

I’m reminded of the parable of Solomon’s Judgement in the Hebrew Bible, where two women appear before King Solomon in claim of a child. The king does not know who to believe, so he decrees that the child be cut in half and distributed evenly. One woman, horrified by the suggestion, steps forward and relinquishes her request to be given the child. She cannot bear the thought of this child dying. And so the king is then certain, she is the real mother. Anyone who would so destroy land reveals themselves as not of or from the land. Yet even with this distinction, I find it important add a caveat, complex and nuanced and subtle as this world is.

By now there has been three or four, perhaps more, generations of Israeli settlers on once Palestinian land. A friend and colleague of mine, while discussing the war, asked me to show him my village on the map. Then he showed me his family’s home in the north, right across from the southern Lebanese border. I very much am of the belief of no other—no such thing as enemy. Every living being, human and beyond-human, and every conditional fact of existence, depends, relies on, and informs the existence of everything and everyone else. We are bound up with each other whether we agree to it or not, and so must learn, however it is, to tend to one another as if our lives depend on it, because they do. I am also of the belief of what the poet and activist Robin Morgan writes, “hate generalizes, love specifies.”

Given the many generations on the land now, I cannot generalize that no person living in current day Israel, especially in the north, loves the land. I can only assume that many love and tend to what they have known as their and, and care for its health, and champion its viability. Besides, how far down the generations do we entirely cede the notion of a different possibility? In much the same way European colonizers, far along enough now, would not think of ceding land back to the rightful indigenous inheritors of what is called the United States of America, I believe we are already at the point where many Israelis, especially in rural areas, claim to be of the land. Some, those younger, have known no other home. Perhaps, and I believe so, there is a way to, at this point in history, integrate and afford legal equal rights to all citizens of the land. The problem today more so is not only the mistreatment of Palestinians and Israel’s genocidal behavior, but the continued forced evacuations, the growth in settlements on current day Palestinian homes, and, as we have seen, the attempt to capture additional land in Lebanon. Colonization is still happening, and resistance to it is still rising, hence genocide and war. Apart from the the current Israeli dwellers of several generations whom I imagine love the land specifically, I do not consider that Netanyahu’s government, nor those who arrive from America on the promise of a house and forcibly kick out a Palestinian from their ancestral home, love the land. (Here is one example. Here is another example which especially hurts.)

One might consider that, if those who drive forward the mechanism of war truly cared for the land, they would not use white phosphorous or destroy old and ancient tree groves. Would you not, if you loved the land you seek to capture, hope to grow on it? To honor the centuries of roots that web it? Among the impacts of white phosphorous is the destruction of crops, the poisoning of the soil, the killing of wildlife, and the contamination of water. Such chemicals can stay in the ground for thousands of years. What is it exactly that Israel plans to do? Certainly they won’t be able to thrive on it for a while to come. Certainly they have robbed us of that possibility too.

These videos above were taken a bit less than two months ago by my brother at our maternal village home. There was a short ceasefire. He drove up there to harvest what he could and grab a few items for Teta (grandmother) who mostly lives there year round. Israel has since sent in drones into our village.

These are our village homes now (first two videos are of my paternal home, the photo of my maternal home). A few of the men who stayed there have recorded videos for families who fled.

Teta is now living with Mama in a nearly five hundred square foot apartment by the ocean, south of Beirut. Teta is a village woman. She loves the life and rhythm of the village. She misses her home. Mama is also a village woman, though she is tethered by some inaudible siren song to the sea. Teta, in her eighties, who wants nothing more than to wake and tend to her garden, and hysterically shoo away cats, now must contend with another forced departure, seeing how she’s lived her life by the thrum of war. My brother, a man of thirty four years, who lives close to Mama, gave up his home for a family from the village with nowhere else to go. He now lives in the apartment by the sea with Mama and Teta. He sleeps on the couch. It will be a long time until each can return to their home, this is if the war ends today and efforts to rebuild are underway. But the war has not ended. It hasn’t ever ended. Always the possibility is there. [Note: Even with the current news of a peace agreement between the Israeli government and the Lebanese government (read: not with the Lebanese people, not with the people of the south), still IDF forces are promised the ability to remain stationed. Still rockets have been launched. I fear we are on the brink of another civil war.]

I think of Wendell Berry who wrote this in his essay The Agrarian Standard—“If you have no land you have nothing: no food, no shelter, no warmth, no freedom, no life. If we remember this, we know that all economies begin to lie as soon as they assign a fixed value to land. People who have been landless know that the land is invaluable; it is worth everything.”

I think of this also in the context of the occupier. They may have control of the land, but they don’t have land. They don’t know the language of the soil, the songs of its people, those that live beneath it, the pulse of the ground. To occupy a land is not freedom. It is a disease of greed. In truth, it is land that owns us. It remembers our names, the warmth of our fingers, the lips which kiss and praise it. It gives safety to those who know it. To those who, despite every threat, still stand to protect and love it, even when far away.

Why am I telling you all this today? Because I am far away. This is how I know to love and champion this little place in the big universe I was destined to come through. The great difficulty of the diaspora, and in my case, of someone who has now lived in the United States for longer than I have in Lebanon, is this tension between two homes. Much like one feels when their parent’s divorce. I revere both homes. I love who I am in each place and circumstance. I pine often to return, and yet, I cannot relinquish my deep connection to the land of the Rockies. So I write to love it, this village place of my inheritance. I’m reminded of a story Mama tells me of when she was in Houston and missing home. This excerpt is from Habibi Means Beloved.

“There is this tradition of gathering around the loquat tree and spitting out seeds after you’d softly tucked your lips against its head with three fingers pursed around its bell-shaped bottom. The fruit is orange-colored and pear-shaped, slightly larger than a fig, peach-soft to the lips, and tropical in flavor. Rivaled by the tart crunch of janerik, a sour green plum served with a salt dish for dipping, loquats are feverishly consumed among the Lebanese. Nour and I ran up to the rooftop and picked them off the plentiful limbs. We’d sit at the edge looking out over a spattering of red-roofed homes and minarets couched by groves of olive and lemon trees.

Mama tells a story of a loquat tree she found at a museum in Houston when she fled the war in 1987 while pregnant with me to visit her expat family. The loquat tree is an evergreen, making it ideal for ornamental landscaping. Mama spotted it while walking through the courtyard and could not stop herself from climbing over the low ledge to forage the orange jewel, lingering in a delirious state of ravished praise. The way Mama speaks of it is like finding an oasis in the desert, thirsty to fill her heart with the taste of home. As the story goes, a uniformed woman asked Mama to step away from the tree, concerned that she might poison herself and her forming baby. In broken English, Mama explained that the fruit was not, in fact, poisonous, but ‘is good for you,’ offering the officer her freshly picked sins, a claim the concerned officer dismissed. They reached an impasse, and Mama was left to her fatal disobedience.”

In me are still these memories of a childhood roaming the garden. In me is still the living pulse of my ancestors. So that no matter what happens, whether the vile greed of an occupation robs us from our natural right, or whether we return to nurse and recover the soil, I still have the undeniable imprint of experience.

I return often, if not to the physical land, to this most graceful for truths: impermanence and no self. The world today as we know it is not the world of two thousand years ago. Empires will fall. Nations will change. The Israeli-American project will most certainly see its end. The Earth’s geography will no doubt, in time, reconfigure. A different language may prosper. A different way of being, hopefully one founded on mercy and compassion, will take residence in the minds and hearts of a future people altogether foreign to us. So in the grand scale of time, I grieve little. I see this for what it is: an experience unfolding and soon to pass away itself. There can be no victors then, just the one unfolding narrative, and the proof, the evidence, that we did what we could to protect the places we come from. Perhaps this serves someone down the eons who might look back in encouragement and say “they did not give up.” For now, we are here, today. And today, as a poet and a writer, as a witness, I have the duty to tell of what I saw and how I loved.

And I love, to a great degree, the land of what is today the Lebanese south, and subsequently, the land of Palestine. A land defined not just by customs and loquats, but by the muscle of faith, by a resilience so woven into our tongues, an against the odds determination. As Mama has expressed—let them kill every last one of us, and still they will never has access to the land, they will never know how to witness it like we do.

I will leave you with one more poem.

Bear Witness

The Arab tongue knows witness as 
the anchor of martyr.
      Shahid and shaheed, respectively.
Both words rooted in the harsh and 
weighted finality of the exhaled breath. 
In the giving of self as testimony to life. 
So that dying for a cause is bearing your 
life witness to that very cause. And dying 
defending your land is bearing yourself 
as allegiant devotee to it. How the soul 
bears; to mean withstands, to mean 
stands with, pronouncing the enormity 
of faith and purpose to what lay beyond 
the known mystery. Proclaiming 
in name, and self, the central usefulness 
of existence— that each life attends 
fully to what it loves, then gives itself 
completely over to it.

- Moudi Sbeity

A note on AI, necessary to disclose at this point.
I have read some posts that very much sound like AI writing. It is easily identifiable, so it baffles me that people still do it and claim it as their own creativity. As such I lose interest in the piece. I do not use AI whatsoever in writing any poem or essay. The one thing in this life I have to root in as a place of confidence and purpose is writing, so why deny myself the pleasure of crafting and composing? I do sometimes ask an AI service for reflections and analysis, but that is the extent to which I use it, and seldomly (AI would never use seldomly, seeing how it is an obsolete word). That is all. Now go ask a tree about the definition of intelligence. Report back if necessary.

In Praise of Impermanence

The knowledge of an ending makes any situation 
tolerable. I find comfort, for instance, in knowing

the earth won’t be around forever, or in the proven 
fact that we don’t last long. Anyway, who here would 
elect to live eternally as one condition? Our good 
Friend would not be so cruel to wish anything so 
fixed. So I praise already 

the transition, the unknown, the breaking, the step 
beyond what I have assumed to be certain. I walk 
my days arrested by the love of all, greeting everyone 
and everything with this most merciful of promises— 

               the mountain in its slow crumbling, 
               rivers and lakes in their eventual drying, 
               the fresh spring blossoms in their urgent 
               attentive joy, friends I bow goodbye to, 
               the ache in my heart I place a hand to 
               in reminder

—things change. What relief. 
What tenderness in the certainty of not forever. 
Just here, right now. What wisdom in not taking 
for granted, in drinking the dawn and its necessary 
dusk as a heavenly goblet of both arising beauty 
and passing grief.

- Moudi Sbeity

It is a humbling truth: nothing lasts forever as it was. All things earn their end. What do we make of this promise? When coming to terms with the guarantee of loss, we can step more fully into the gift and miracle of being here. Impermanence then becomes a doorway to gratitude. No doubt you have experienced loss yourself. Let’s explore, through poetry, discourse, and writing, how it is we can praise our losses, love the fact of impermanence, and step into the guidance and mercy of change.

Join me on Saturday, July 18 from 10am - 12pm MDT.
Register here: https://inpraiseofimpermanence.eventbrite.com.
This is a donation based event. I have slightly increased my ask, but please,
as always, do not let cost be a barrier. Even a kind thank you is enough.

Lastly, a note to say thank you to all who offered heart support for my mini at-home retreat. As you may have noticed, I was still a bit active on Substack and other social media accounts. It’s been a healthy way for me to engage with poetry and writing while mostly retreating from physical social spaces. I am feeling restored and much better. With my lover traveling on a solo trip to Ireland this week, I have about ten days for deep solitude. I hope to dwell in it wisely. So I’ll be away from Substack for the next week or so, but I did want to send out this invitation before it got too close to the date. I also have a poem and a short essay about my home village scheduled to post next week. I’ll see you on the other side, and I hope to gather with you for In Praise Of: Impermanence.
May your heart be at ease.

Tending to the World

By now it’s become habit.
I barely notice myself bending 
and reaching for the fallen branch, 
kicking stones off the pathway, 
picking up stray wrappers, 
the thrown bottle. I don’t intend
to be kind. I don’t stop and think 
of myself as acting in kindness, 
or consider it as right. It is just that 
I’ve become accustomed to clearing 
obstacles, trained the impulse in me 
that loves beauty. Grown— beyond 
virtue and doubt and morality— 
a reflexive nerve, a quiet vigor, 
an observant pulse insisting on 
tending to the world.  

- Moudi Sbeity

Sometimes it takes another to see something in you. And sometimes, this is done inadvertently by witnessing another. This is how this poem came about. Beloved poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer published a poem three days ago, Different Paths, speaking to how her husband slows “down to kick off the / smaller rocks, / stopping to pick up / and toss the larger ones.” I recognized that I do that too, though I hadn’t considered it as anything worthy of my attention. This is the magic of poetry, it can witness us, and so we can then witness ourselves.

Free writing workshop - Thursday June 25 at 4:00pm ET. Hosted by ZenJen Brown, I will be facilitating - Register here.

Chop Wood, Carry Water 

And if there is no wood to chop, 
if there is no nearby well, then 
sweep floor, wash dishes. Or else 
dust bookshelf, smell flowers. 
Any combination will do: 
        polish mirror, plant seeds
        peel potatoes, prune leaves
        pay attention, praise, please.
What other purpose than this? 
Every living being devotes their 
time to the task of survival. 
What other reason could there 
be than living into another day? 
From inbreath to exhale, from 
first light to last, this is all there 
is to do: prepare what keeps 
the fire, gather what quenches 
our thirst. 

- Moudi Sbeity

So much of the messaging today tells us that we must become something big, something grand, someone who helps move the world forward in a remarkable way. This is a lot of pressure for one body and one person. It helps to remember that all things fade, that all things depends on all other things which also fade. That all breathe in their own necessary and vital way. Then there is just the simple task of being enough for this moment, and the next, and the next. Writing a poem, sweeping the door step. Weeding the garden, talking to a friend. Our lives could be less busy, less complicated. The life of everything else depends on it. There can be no reason for war then, no reason for violence.

Friends, if you are around this Thursday June 25 at 4:00pm ET, I will be facilitating a free writing workshop hosted by ZenJen Brown - Register here.

Well, not all the time

I did not want to sound unrealistic, as if 
nothing else occupied my waking attention 
but the thought of him. It was early in our 
relationship. So I corrected myself when,
while lying naked on top with folded 
hands and my chin to his chest, I looked 
into his eyes and said, 
              I think about you all the time. 
I don’t want to be untruthful, either. 
I thought of other things, too. I thought 
of work and lunch, the many books I want 
to read. I thought of God, and purpose. 
I thought of questions I didn’t have the 
answers to. I thought of kissing, and
scripture, and poetry. And yes, I did 
think of him, to a large degree, to maybe 
a more than normal degree. I thought 
of him in the context of all this: 
books, lunch, kissing, God. 
And later, after he left, I thought also 
of the laughter that broke between us 
when I said it—          
                            Well, not all the time.
              How it did not phase him. 
              How sweetly he understood. 

- Moudi Sbeity

Maybe you too have said something funny to your beloved? This and many other moments between us bring me much laughter and joy. This poem is in celebration of Taylor’s birthday (June 20). A gift from God in my life. Someone who has shown me what love can look like in its unconventional, mature, expansive form. Someone who’s chest is a safe place. And a muse for many poems. Here are a handful if you are inclined:

In Awe of His Awe
What I Didn’t Know Before
Buzz Pollination
A Million Prostrations of Thanks
Grandrabbit’s Toy Shoppe
After Reading The Song of Achilles
Behold!
Notes
How To See It

And one more bonus poem

Wet Green Field

If in this life 
a time should come 
where I could no longer 
curl into your arms, then 
consider me a blade of 
grass risen from your body 
a thousand times over, 
and a thousand times more, 
in search of you, becoming 
one wet green field.

- Moudi Sbeity

Loving-Kindness

Don’t give up so easily
now that your prayers and recitations haven’t 
miraculously changed the whole of your life. 
A single drop of water daily crashing against 
the same surface eventually smoothes the hard 
edges of rock, and in due time, impresses a 
divot, something that can hold the gathering 
rain. Keep practicing, wherever you may be,
no matter the conditions. Keep whispering 
                                your hand to your heart–
may I be happy / may I be healthy / may I be safe 
from harm. 

And then
may you be happy / may you be healthy / may you 
be safe from harm. 

And after that the chorus of the sum of us
may we be happy / may we be healthy / may we be 
safe from harm.

Any prayer will do. For ease and peace. For 
comfort. For joy. For fortitude. Let this be a 
companion song. Soon what was rock becomes 
stone, and what was stone becomes resting spot. 
By then your whole life will have changed. And 
you, having grown accustomed to this steady 
tenderness, will have barely noticed how gently
you’ve walked through your own door, arriving. 

- Moudi Sbeity

Small daily steps help us cover vast distances. This is how we transform overtime. Thank you to for including this poem in the anthology The Intention of Love. You can download a free digital copy of the anthology here. And you can watch our conversation on Youtube below <3