Poetry and Rain

     About 55  years ago, when I was in my Junior year of college at UCLA, I participated in a most exciting activity.  On a large bulletin board on the ground floor of Royce Hall, far away from the ads for typewriter service, and upcoming concerts and speakers, way up in the right-hand corner a little experiment was taking place.  

    an anonymous group of students was exchanging ideas and opinions under pseudonyms.  It was the age of flower children and war resistors.  It was smack dab in the big middle of the Civil Rights movement.  Nixon was the President, and the Beatles were still a relatively new group.  Dylan was transitioning from Folk to Rock, Janis Joplin was about a year away, and the Rolling Stones were a competent blues band of British blokes.  

    There were no cell phones or computers.  Gas costs about a quarter a gallon and tuition for arguably one of the best universities in the country was approximately $80.00 a quarter.  Using these false names, students were reaching out to find humanity in a sea of 30,000 students in a city of millions.  Anyone could read the posts left by this group.  Those posts were literally posted with thumbtacks!

    Trying to broaden my world and perhaps meet some new friends I sheepishly joined this group under the name of B.L. Poet.  Occasionally I offered an opinion or a critique.  In time I came to look forward to passing this bulletin board to see if anything new had appeared.  One day,  someone, whose name I do not recall asked the participants: Write me a poem about rain.  I took up the challenge.  Within a couple of days, I posted my work. 

    I no longer have that poem.  In the last 50 years, I have lived in 3 states and moved a dozen times.  That poem, if it ever made it into one of my poetry folders, did not survive.  It served its purpose.  But I do recall the last line of the poem.  It was something about children who "watched us breathe the rain."  I liked that poem, especially the last line.  

    Fast forward to today.  I decided to see what an AI Bot would do if asked to write a poem.  Here is the result:

Write a poem about rain

The rain falls down 

A soothing sound

A tranquil moment

For which we are bound

It washes away

The dust of the day

And cools down the earth

In its own special way

The plants and the trees

Dance in glee 

As their thirst is quenched

By natures decree

There is more, but you get the idea