Apathetic 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." Sara Teasdale's There Will Come Soft Rains as featured in Ray Bradbury's August 2026

 

This poem eloquently describes a future that not many of us take the time to consider. Still, on a smaller scale we see evidence of time's apathy everyday. There Will Come Soft Rains forces me to consider the idea that time ages and moves on despite death, despite destruction, and despite loss. Notice when a celebrity or even a loved one dies, the loss is typically discussed and mourned for some time after. Legacies are remembered and achievements are commemorated, but slowly but surely, time plays it's part to move us forward. Life continues despite that loss. 

August 2026 allows me to consider the idea that technology just may live on without us. When time and destruction annihilates us, all that is left will continue to function. As described, the birds will continue to fly, trees will be left to bloom and all the advances we have killed ourselves to invent will turn around and proceed in this life without us. As the seasons change, not one of them, not even beautiful spring will remember us. They'll change until the world ceases altogether (or until God himself finishes it all). Not one other living creature will care if mankind perished. They will continue just the same. As shown in the story, domesticated animals will rot, but those that can survive ultimately will. 

The story merely illustrated the poem in a way that was more evident. If one is forgotten by mankind after the apathetic hands of time heals enough to destroy grief, why wouldn't the existing life that surround us move on just the same? A thought-provoking concept well conveyed.