There have come soft rains

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there’s some cliche in movies
when one character says to another
“I killed you ten minutes ago”
meaning the lethal dose was already injected
but is taking effect only now
with just enough time left
for a snappy line and a slow fade to black
I think of this delayed death today
a day on which seventy six years ago
Ray Bradbury once imagined
that we were all already dead
yet we are still alive
in 103 degree heat
under a sky veiled in smoke
after a winter with no snow
and a summer
with very little rain
yet we are still alive
the light of our handheld suns
the brightest lights we know
yet we are still alive
as thousands of species die
and ever more children
and plastic bottles
and nuclear bombs
and data centers
and machine guns
are churned out
yet we are still alive
we say have beaten the prophesy
of the nuclear holocaust
but maybe in the soft rains
there is doom yet
for only soft rains fall
despite our thirst
and even the rain is going away
I wonder if we have already done enough
to make the world uninhabitable
and it is only just catching up to us
maybe now we get to watch our poison take hold
maybe when Bradbury sat down
and imagined us all already dead
the ruined world smoldering and empty of life
our technologies having comforted,
controlled and then killed us
maybe he was right
maybe today we are already dead
the soft rains have come
maybe what comes next
is nothing at all