Kitchen Counter Mandala

sweet dime
overlooked spill
a drop of pale honey

thirty polite sisters arrive
and space themselves
round the circle
to sip at the golden pool

geometers swallow in unison
abdomens vibrate in joy—
the sine wave
of a metronome

this circumference
of ant bodies
polished spokes
on a wheel of ambrosia

Monarch

Two caterpillars curled around
a branchlet, dew on their bodies.
Counting eggs, one at the crook
where a new stem rises,
I found happiness.

An old monarch, miles on his
ragged wings, tugged at my sleeve
and climbed to my shoulder.
We rested one in the other,
dissolved borders.

Tokonoma

A wasp the color of Sado clay
softens wood with spittle,
pats the pulp to make a nest.

Potters from Sado know red clay
is brittle so mix it with yellow
to turn a pot on the wheel.

A wasp nest or a tea bowl
placed in an alcove

is empty.

My core practice is rooted in the mindfulness practice of Thich Nhat Hanh: sitting and walking meditation, mindfulness of the breath in all things. The practice of loving-kindness.

I also draw spiritual sustenance from the fierce wisdom of my godmother, the late contemplative artist Meinrad Craighead. I experience the luminous and ecstatic by connecting to non-human realms, to our plant and animal kin.

Mobi Warren is a poet-naturalist who lives in San Antonio, Texas. She is the translator of several works by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh including The Miracle of Mindfulness and Old Path White Clouds. Warren leads poetry walks rooted in mindfulness practice and offers workshops in which direct experience of the natural world inspires writing and encourages advocacy for all species that share our planet home. She is the co-founder of an environmental writers and artists collective, Stone in the Stream/Roca en el Rio, and is the author of The Bee Maker, a science fiction novel for young people. Her poetry chapbook, Thread and Nectar, is forthcoming in 2020 from Finishing Line Press.

More on Mobi Warren’s work can be found on our Links page.