There will come soft rains

I've just come across by chance this beatiful poem expressing how much Nature would enjoy a world without humans.


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

And frogs in the pool 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.


The most astonishing thing is that this poem dates back to 1920!
At first it surprised me a bit finding someone that almost 100 years ago had the idea of the extinction of mankind revolving around his head. I think that nowadays, due to the many issues that we're facing now (climate change, globalization of the economy, oil depletion, fish depletion, religious fanatism, moral decline of Western society and above all, overpopulation) this idea of humanity being wiped out is not so strange for a certain percentage of the population, but wouldn't have expected such thoughts in that time.
Well, thinking it twice, I guess that after having witnessed in WWI how much the destructive power of humans had increased, thinking of the "total annihilation" was a pretty natural thought.

This idea of how great it would be for the planet to get rid of us (the architects of the Sixth Extinction) is rather clear to me, and is pretty well set out by Michael Boulter in that great documentary "Dodo's Guide to surviving extinction", but it's something that I don't think is understood by most of the population (when thinking about the many challenges that humanity will confront in the near future people tend to think about the end of the world, but no guys, it's not the end of "the world", it's just the end of humanity). This is normal due to our terribly anthropocentric view of everything, an anthropocentrism that will be one of the main causes of our self destruction...

I watched a documentary some years ago where Sir Martin Rees stated that the probability of extinction of Human race by the end of this century was around 50%, well, if we think in terms of a partial destruction (getting to an apocalyptical world like the ones depicted in The Book of Elli or The Road) I bet those chances are much higher...

By the way, "there will come soft rains" was the title of the E150's last track in their split 7" with Ivich (buff... that was 1997...). It was a beautiful melodic electronic song composed by their drum player (Carlos) that had little to do with the fast and furious music usually distilled by these BCN Punks.