Poems to share

I’m writing to you now that I miss you,
The times and memories we shared,
Life is a shroud darkness without you,
A pain, I cannot bare
- Matthew Khoo

It happened on the twenty-fourth of December,
And indeed, it was a day to remember,
It was a day just before Christmas day,
The day, Death was at play.
A tidal wave,
Like a mighty hand,
Reaching from the ocean to the land,
Its fingers of foam, circling round,
Uprooting trees, destroying homes to the ground,
It aimed its fist at everything in sight,
Nothing could survive its dreadful might,
People ran, scared and in fright,
Nowhere to go and nowhere to hide,
The hand was born in the belly of the ocean,
It grew in fury, it grew in power,
The anger to be unleashed within the hour,
No one knew what was on the way,
People were working, children at play,
A shriek of surprise as everyone saw,
A huge wall of white horses galloping ashore,
Travelling with such speed,
Shaking the earth with such power,
Sweeping hundreds of thousands off their feet,
There was no limit…
Lives were lost, bodies were found,
Cries of wailing drowned the sounds…

I stared in horror at the sight before me,
The news broadcasted live on BBC,
Watching innocent people of Phuket die in vain,
The ruins and ruble hiding all the pain,
The carnage, the aftermath

Maybe it was destiny,
That I was to survive this tragedy,
It was God who gave His grace and pardon,
With a greater future at His garden,

A split second decision changed it all,
The matter of life and death,
I was safe guarded, by the Great Wall,
Away from the grasps of Death

As I sit here looking at the obituaries,
Of the victims killed by the dreadful tsunami,
Wondering in my mind,
One of them could have been me…

Indeed Death is a thief,
None can ever foresee…

By,
Matthew Khoo