Remembering Neethu Panicker - Chapter 1
(A Life Worth Living)
Chapter 1
Seems I have to accept you are gone from my life
Though in truth you were really a minor
Who became major leaguer, in spite of the facts,
On the day that you called me grandfather.
We adopted each other for better or worse,
A blood bond formed with poetry’s heartbeat.
Childless senior who shared your unspeakable loss,
Youthful poetry: watering my life,
Both my marriages barren (I guess it was fate)
Your real family gone in an instant.
It was mother’s last gift to push you from their car
(Barely hanging from cliff and on fire),
She succeeded to launch oldest girl from the nest
Though she failed at extracting your brother.
It was mom’s love of life that gave birth to your muse
When you woke a month later from coma!
Though you missed out on closure of family wake
Now you honor their lives with your talent,
And weep poetry’s tears you can no longer fight
With your brother, just memory fading. (1)
Brian Johnston
July 8, 2016
Poet's Notes:
Neethu Panicker was a 16 year old female poet on PoemHunter.com when I first
became acquainted with her. Suffering from depression and complications from
brain trauma after her fall and she eventually withdrew from PoemHunter and
may now be deceased. With her leaving PoemHunter all our correspondence
disappeared so this poem comes mainly from my memory of her many emails
to me.
There will be several more Chapters to this poem as I find time to write them
and every word is a faithful paraphrase of her life as she shared it with me. We
never met, so a caution, she could be a fictional character though I personally
want to believe her story is true. I will do my best to share this amazing story
for I may be the only one who can. I do apologize for the serial nature of this
“poem” but it is really quite an undertaking as time will reveal.
(1) Her only extant work "MISS YOU BRO" that I know of can be found on my
PoemHunter.com site under the title "Ph: Poem En Duo: Views Of A Dark
Canyon" and on PoetrySoup.com under the title "Views Of A Dark Canyon:
Poems En Duo 1."
Copyright © Brian Johnston | Year Posted 2016
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