Passage Of Mother Most Pangfull (Why Mother Should Live And Not Leave) Poem by Tony Cemaluk

Mother should live and not leave.
Mine carried carton to Heaven-Crown.

Mother did not die, she passed —
like carton passing from head to hand of angels.

Parturition after conception and delivery,
all in wartime,
with attendant famine,
widespread malnutrition of all.

She, like skeleton, breastfed me
not to be a skeleton
from the torture grip of kwashiorkor.

Shortly after, husband, my dad passed
when I was eating like fatmished hyena.
I didn't feel his passage.
Mother was with me.

Truly, she doubled up and filled the gap.
Bore the burden like a pro.
The pang appearing pangless to little me.

Not hiring hands,
becoming hands.
Carton upon carton she carried.
Sacred sweat anointed her wrapper,
wrapper of faith and fate.
Pangfull pains she bore without complain.

Her logic, her philosophy:
Let my today be heavy, be pangfull,
so his tomorrow be light and pain-free.

Nne bu ugwu.
Ife adika Nne.
Nne bu oku na enye ife.
Nne na amazi uzo nke Chukwu.
Nne di Ebube.
Ebube Agbala Nnem!

Mother at fifty to hundred plus,
even senile, never good to succumb to death,
but passage is better euphemism —
mine merely passed from carton to cloud.
Carton fell, crown rose.
Her last sweat did not drop to ground,
it rose to heaven.

The pangfull moment is inevitable
no matter the age of mother:
Painful, but full of meaning.

I am Cemaluk — not carrying cartons,
but carrying her,
my mother's name.
What she carried on head,
I carry in chest.
Her sweat-anointed wrapper becomes my toga,
my flag, my compass.
Her sale chant, her prayer,
becomes my poetry.

PoemHunter is not just website,
it is altar post-position
for her pre-passage past.
Google will not forget her carton steps.
Every son, every daughter, every child
will remember and relate
why pains of passage of Mother
will remain most pangfull.

Mine, Mama Cecilia carried cartons,
but she carried destiny.

Call me not son of struggle,
Call me CEMALUK —
Son of the woman who carried cartons and carried destiny.