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Column 547

There Have Come Soft Rains

Intro by Ted Kooser
09.13.2015

I’ve seen many poems about the atom­ic bomb drills that school­child­ren were put through dur­ing the Cold War, but this one reach­es beyond that expe­ri­ence. John Philip John­son lives and writes in Nebras­ka, and has an illus­trat­ed book of poems, Stairs Appear in a Hole Out­side of Town.

There Have Come Soft Rains

In kindergarten during the Cold War,
mid-day late bells jolted us,
sending us single file into the hallway,
where we sat, pressing our heads
between our knees, waiting.

During one of the bomb drills,
Annette was standing.
My mother said I would talk on and on
about her, about how pretty she was.
I still remember her that day,
curly hair and pretty dress,
looking perturbed the way
little children do.
Why Annette? There’s nothing
to be upset about—
The bombs won’t get us,
I’ve seen what’s to come—
it is the days, the steady
pounding of days, like gentle rain,
that will be our undoing.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by John Philip Johnson, “There Have Come Soft Rains,” from Rattle, (No. 45, Fall 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of John Philip Johnson and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.