SERIES OF OMENS Poem by Kanaka Ha Ma

Don't disbelieve omens
Omens are clues
Warnings from the soil

Shrivelling up again and again,
Dying even as they sprout —
A broken clay lamp,
A discarded puppet, suffocated in its own swaddling,
A neglected devi in the corner of a village, unworshipped, wrathful
A series of nightmares.

The residue of past karma
Or this life's folly —
Torment churning ceaselessly in a whirlpool —
Finally ends.
Next morning,
Sunshine

The clues connect —
A line of a poem read somewhere
Two birds flying in the sky
Sparrows nesting in a loft
The odour of neelanjana, always burning
The creeper in the backyard, flowering …