There Will Come Soft Rains
by Sara Teasdale

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.


From The Language of Spring, edited by Robert Atwan, published by Beacon Press, 2003.

I was reading this poem and I wondered if anyone thinks mankind should become extinct,

or if they believe that their god would cause this to happen in response to man's actions (e.g. a scourge, Noah's flood, etc.).

Ok, this may get controversial...

My personal beliefs is that we are the only species in the whole food chain, eco system that is able to be removed, without causing harm to the natural cycles...

SO extinction will not affect anything, except us...

Do we deserve it?

From a purely scientific veiwpoint, yes.

We broke it...

It is said that He will not destroy the earth again. We will do it for Him.
KLat

Klat...
Oh and yea. We will most certainly deserve what we get. As Lee said "we broke it".
Kat

couldn't agree more

Is that a pseudonym Klat?

Or is "KLat" your alter ego? Evil twin?

I wonder...trying to be objective.

When humankind is adversely affected by anything, that will affect their existence, be it natural predator...grizzlybear, shark, virus, disease, weather, they become inventive at protecting them selves...weapons, heating and cooling, artificial environs, vaccines, cures...

And yet when one looks at humankind, the Great mother doesn't appear to have the same opportunities.

Given humankind is inventive...

I see the Great Mother as passive, and humankind as aggressive...disturbing I know...

Klat and Jilt peeked up a kilt
to pollute a pail of water
Klat fell down and nearly drown
whilst Jilt was raped and slaughtered

T’is what the world has come to
when men are in control
it’s time that nature purges them
to decay them into coal

Sorry I don't think we deserve extinction and since the Earth's climate has been changing for millions of years before we came I don't think we have totally broken it either.sorry I'm raising a human being,i don't wish our extinction at all.Start teaching your kids how to treat Earth by example instead of dissing your species then things will change.There are to many wonderful things humans do for animals,for each other to ever have me think we deserve extinction.God don't make trash.

Hey I agree Jax...and as I said, from a purely scientific veiwpoint only...

I want a healthy home for all the children on this earth..

Taking my emotion out of the question was how I answered it...only from a scientific point, and not looking at myself as human..

I’m with you all the way Jax!

Mankind over all is actually pretty good. It’s just the stupidity of world leaders that sucks.

However, it is true that our leaders not about to change. Even the ones who have the very best of intentions are kind of stuck with are economy-based civilizations. Trying to get people to move back to a nature-cooperative way of life simply isn’t on the table. And no politician who would even suggest such a drastic thing would even be remotely considered by voters.

We’re kind of stuck in the economy-based situation until mother nature forces us out of it. That is actually beginning to happen, but rather than embracing it with open arms and planning toward making that transition, our current leaders are simply trying to buck against nature in the hopes that technologies will finally slay her altogether and give mankind the upper hand.

But that ain’t gonna happen. At least not in a pretty way.

You just don’t slap god in the face and expect her to kiss you for it.

I actually tried to live a back-to-basics lifestyle. Two things failed for me personally. First, I couldn’t find a partner who wanted to live that way. And secondly, the econo-based society that surrounded me always had their hands out demanding that I provide them with mammon.

Abra

We lived entirely off the grid, with minimal input into the economy greed side of things...land rates and staples we couldn't produce ourselves...were our major contributions, and yes we had a vehicle...however it was a minimal use vehicle...we had legs...we used them 12 kms into the nearest town, and we used to walk or ride the horses or the pushbikes.

Lee I wasn't attacking you my friend just the flippancy of people saying "sure humans deserve it"We are animals and mammals like all the others we just have brain thing going for us.
of course my main contribution to the ecology is i don't fart outside.global warming doncha know.

hi james.i've missed you..

Maybe we could bag them and invent a new heating fuel....

To say that mankind deserves to be extinct is the same as saying humans don't have the capacity for growth and change. As a young man, I believed in the 11th commandment "Thou shall not destroy the Earth nor the life thereon". Now that I'm older, I still love the planet, but I believe that militant environmentalism is possibly a mental disorder. I value human life, any human life, higher than animals. But that doesn't mean that I see animals as worthless, just not as equals.

I like having a mental disorder... when it comes to environmental militicsm..(is that a word?)

I know it is a strong absolute to speak of humankind being made extinct...and that is not my desire...

I was trying to look at the topic without being in it...being an observer.

My whole view is that the Earth does need humans to help it grow more (like gardening, taking care of animals and such) but some moron was dropped on his head as a baby and instead of creating life, he wanted to create death.

I really don't agree with the thought process of that poem.some tree huggers do go over the edge spider I agree but if civilization was to disapear from our life suddenly believe me you would see that the animal is barely supressed in most."Lord of the Flies" drove that point home.