Send us your poems on this subject - email south.yorkshire@bbc.co.uk, with POETRY as the subject - and don't forget to tell us where you're writing from. Bethany, 12 A rumble in the sea,
On Boxing day dawn.
For people yet to see,
Until the gloomy morn. A huge gigantic wave,
Roaring nearer to land.
Too many lives to save,
There among the sand. Holiday makers snoozing,
Basking in the sun.
Lots of sun cream oozing,
A horrific day not yet begun. Then like a trigger,
People start to see.
The wave getting bigger,
Full of evil and cruelty. They start to worry,
Whilst bathing their toes.
Will they survive ?
God only knows. Now it has begun,
There is no time for fun.
There is little time to run,
For the wave is about to come. Alice Randell Why?
That's the question being asked
It happened to innocent people But WHY? Children left without parents
Women left on their own
Men looking for loved ones But we still ask WHY? Still counting the bodies
But where are the missing
There's the fishermen that were fishing
There's the people that were swimming Where are they and WHY? It was an earthquake a tsunami
The killer of thousands
Now we know WHY?
The biggest natural disaster
Came on boxing day And now we ask HOW?
But do we know WHY? Dr. Charles Frederickson, Bankok, Thailand DESTINY REWRITTEN
Father transporting beach bound tourists
Depending upon beneficent stranger kindness
No picnic Remains never found
Uncertainty spinning Dharma wheel chance Temporary accommodation makeshift sixfold flock
Mother eking out meager existence
Selling soamtum mortar & pestle borrowed
Breast feeding fatherless mewling baby Age three abandoned by mother
Real father confined behind bars
Raised by grandmother shopworn hairdresser
Sheer madness goings-on paraphernalia gone Both parents still unaccounted for
Presumed dead burial mound corpses
No relatively speaking family ties
Dispossessed orphan deprived of childhood AFTERMATH STRUGGLE
December 26th uncelebrated Boxing Day
Overcast with bewitching eerie spell
Standstill time half-past ten stoppage
Unwelcome mat tattered flying carpet Lackluster routine lazy Sunday morning
Surprise party crasher arriving unannounced
Barefoot escape twisted rubble confetti
Balloons burst deflating free-float dreams Delving into fiction embellishing fact
Hype versus hope mistaken identities
Unresolved questions special delivery promises
On hold pending bureaucratic approval Patience tested to extreme limits
Intensive care massive clean-up mode
Shattered hourglass shards thumbnail slivers
Ghostly relics haunting inescapable nightmares Agnes Adobe SWAMPED
A baptism, a new beginning. And it involves
so much compassion. I dreamed I had washed
in death, had strode through dirty foam - my hurt gesture
to stir up and invert
the order of charity - I gave my daughter to this appeal, saw her
float off without a face. A sacrifice - one third
of which was children - to renew the abode
of dragons, to make a new purity out of maidens
you must steep in salt water to obtain
their essence. I place a drop of this girl on my tongue. She is swept inland from the coast, deep into
my interior. Diminutive bodies. Old dames. A glamorous
tree decoration I made from a boy, each palm
has this kind of fairy raised over filth. A portion of meat. These water babies keep
texting me from the bottom of the sea. Plankton epithet. Suitcases washed inland -
designer jeans, tops, beachwear - a thong
finely woven with gold thread
amongst silt in the temple. Items to sell
on eBay. A broken backed lady from HR
on week two knotting rope to coco palm -
this flood will make good postcards
to collect. A harvest for the factory ships. God will fake more Darwinian splendours -
people living like eels - swimming upstream
to spawn; in the sluice, the chatter at low tide.
Already on sale in the redemptive harbour,
mer-girls and boys. A monkey torso stitched
to the tail of a fish and dried with neroli
in the native ovens. Disaster kitsch. The teeth of tourists knocked out on a wall
become charms, remedies. An eerie silence
tunnelled from the moon. This sticky child,
a challenge to all our ideas of beauty, bloated
after two days her cherry eyes dark with
the promise of life - a stag carcass upended
like a Somerset road kill - the unborn dead
on my tongue. The most angry are men
needing supper, sitting down to a plate in thrall
to sea urchins, soft lobsters, jumbo shrimps. You send your money my lovely and
display your big heart but what of the
refugees? English compassion is good PR
but does not extend to survivors like these. Govind Paliath, Chennai (formerly Madras), India THE WRATH OF THE TSUNAMI
As the waves rose higher and higher,
The onlookers' eyes filled with fear
And they scattered and tried to flee
Only to be followed by the wrathful Tsunami. It wreaked havoc on the coast,
Demolishing all that lay in its path.
It gushed onwards like a vengeful ghost
Battered remains bore witness to its aftermath. The scent of death hung in the air,
Cries of sorrow followed
That of people in despair,
Amidst ruins of land once hallowed. Thousands dead, many more displaced
Buildings destroyed, whole settlements obliterated
As millions watched the scene dazed,
The wrath of the Tsunami abated. It did not end there, the grief was far from over
For property could be accounted for, but lives? Never;
The atmosphere was laden with a sense of bereavement
As millions mourned, their hearts torn apart by torment. But the proverbial silver lining in the sky
Brought some solace, but not much joy.
As millions of the people, heart rendered by the calamity
Rushed to provide aid, extending their generosity
To survivors and casualties, destitute and needy
Who were unfortunate to face the wrath of the Tsunami. Not to be forgotten, the brave unsung heroes
Who risked their lives to ensure others' safety
Confronted with life or death, death they chose
Thereby transcending the highest realms of nobility. Ordinary men as we cannot but admire
Their grit and courage in the face of adversity
For only a few would risk their lives to save others from jeopardy
And fewer still would do so during a Tsunami. Kelly Morgan, Swinton, Manchester It was Boxing Day 2004
When the world was to change forever more
You and I would swim in the clear blue sea
But soon it would become our enemy No one knew what it had in store
As the waves started to tumble from the ocean floor
Many people in their ideal place
Were suddenly stared at in the face By something that could never be understood
The waves destroying their neighbourhood
People watched from all over the place
As families were destroyed without a trace No one could predict that fateful day
But triumph we will in every way
We will pull together and not be beat
By what might seem a monstrous feat Flowers will blossom and trees will grow
We will show our god what we all know
Our land will become our own again
And we will not be frightened when it starts to rain Although we have lost many people we love
We will show those looking over us from above
That we think of them all in every way
Every second, minute and hour of our living day. | 
