by Mariana Mcdonald
For Abeline, Texas
As farmers say goodbye to farms
and crops lie withering on the soil,
the eyes of AI tech bros widen,
enthralled with prospects of cheap land
soon on the selling block, to build
gigantic Data Centers, some the size
of Central Park like the one in Abeline,
meant to make “its own” energy,
with ten gas turbines, fifty planned,
five dozen diesel generators, to power
an industry that plots and plunders.
While locals gaze at threatened vistas
of endless fields framed by the sun,
breathe toxic air and drink dank water,
face raised bills for heat and cooling,
Data Centers generate heat islands.
All horrors hidden by a scheme of secrecy
and NDAs, without a single question posed
to those who live there: “Do you want this?
Give consent? Are there ways it hurts you?”
The CEOs don’t want to hear from locals,
use permits that will circumvent them,
don’t want to hear about the headaches, asthma.
To them, all land is an AI site without a people,
for an AI industry without a site. Their tax breaks
gut the county budgets, cutting schools and fire
departments, while AI moguls’ pockets overflow.
A painful microcosm of the plague that daily
spreads and grows, infects, now kills our nation.
But people are not silent or compliant.
They rise up angry all around the country,
from Oregon to Texas to Virginia, protest
three thousand Data Centers up and running,
fifteen hundred more planned or in process.
“You can’t drink data!” people cry, and so far,
they’ve blocked sixteen Centers in seven states.
Erin Brockovich is back in headlines, hosts
a website tracking Data Centers, while arrogant
tech oligarchs brush off concern for how AI
is damaging where we live and how we think.
From sea to littered sea the fight is growing.
Governors, reps, and senators take action,
call for moratoriums with enforcement
of new rules for how Centers are greenlit.
Let struggle be how we stop this violation
of the Earth, the land, the waters, air, and
people, in this dangerous time of cruelty
and corruption, fraught with lawless
theft and broad denial of basic rights
we fought for, won, and we want back.
Oh, Abeline, Abeline! May your heavenly vistas
remain, with turquoise skies and dappled sunsets.
May the air you breathe be poison-free and fitting
for all your toiling people, and all life.
Mariana Mcdonald is a poet, writer, activist, and scientist. Her work has been published and anthologized widely. A southerner with lifelong ties to Puerto Rico, she lives in Atlanta.
