SIR - The recent events in the Far East have shocked and horrified us all. Our thoughts and prayers must surely be with the survivors and the relatives of those who have died.

I am sure that our community will respond in whatever way they can to assist in the relief work. I wrote this poem to try and express the horror of that awful event.

The Day the Dreaming Died

Something stirred deep below

a thousand miles away

and the tourists laid on the beach,

a perfect hot tropical day.

Communities went about their work,

as they did on an ordinary day.

The waters rushed across the ocean

and the dreaming died that day.

From deep in the Indian Ocean

the earth roared and plunged,

a terrible, awesome, primeval force

went unnoticed on the land above.

But a rolling wall of water was born

and put out to land, gathering force,

ominous, unstoppable, unthinkable,

a giant let loose on a calm sea.

And the tourists laid on the beach,

a perfect hot tropical day.

Communities went about their work,

as they did on an ordinary day.

The waters rushed across the ocean

and the dreaming died that day.

The curious, the innocent watched from the beach.

The sun was bright. The air was still.

A dark grey finger curled, way out at sea.

Heaven held its breath, Nature did the rest,

water crashing over innocent humanity.

Tourists, workers, lovers, children at play,

picked up like flotsam, swept away.

The noise, the rage, the blinding force

of enraged sea taking over the earth.

And then it was gone, sliding back to its home,

leaving bodies like leaves after an autumn storm.

Cars, buildings and trains,

scattered like toys,

at the end of some fearsome, gigantic game.

All done in Nature's name.

Now the bodies lie in rows on the sand,

relatives and friends walk hand in hand,

frantically searching, looking,

but not wanting to find,

that which they seek. Oh God be kind!

Bob O'Neill Melrose Avenue Yate