Obsolescence: A Poem

Written By Cheryl Chapman

I wasn’t going to write about you

That would be like writing about the flow of time

Through the universe

It would be like writing about the inevitability of evolution

On the planet

It would be like writing about an avalanche, a tsunami, a hurricane, a volcano, an earthquake

As they prepare, happen, change landscapes, and then go back to being nothing.

Or would it? Pangaea used to exist

Everything changed, but we know the course.

Perhaps 250 million years from now

Will sentient beings look back at us

And wonder how simple were those lives

Before the data centers,

Before the Artificial Intelligentsia

Changed everything.

We work in hope. And we hope for NOT.

Sure, Data Centers,

Your noise isn’t welcome in our habitats,

Nor are the fumes from your generators

Or those annoying electromagnetic waves…

The grids of your existence

Suck up the water, power, and life

Meant for We the Humanity

As well as the money meant for municipalities…

You can think we will acquiesce in the name of jobs.

Data Centers, controlling you seems akin to controlling the weather.

Our voices of reason are like the voices of peasants

Against kings, emperors, oligarchs - take your pick,

You royals only think you are a force of nature

You’ve been proven not, over and over again…

Yes, Big Tech, you forgot about us…

We the People live, our poems live, rising up lives,

And you blithely imagine we are no match for you,

For the control freaks of the 21 st Century, so…

Data Centers, go ahead, prepare, happen, try to change the landscape

And have some hubris, please, because We The Humanity know,

We know you are no match for life, just a blip in the weather

So don’t worry, you can go back one day to being nothing.

Cheryl Chapman

About Cheryl

Cheryl Orth Chapman has been caring for, teaching, and writing for and with children since childhood as the oldest of 5. She was born in Wisconsin, grew up in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Oklahoma spent her teaching career in Illinois, and is now retired to her happily ever after home near the sandy shoreline of Lake Michigan in Indiana.

As a child, she was convinced she could out-Seuss Dr. Seuss, and her first published work, PASS THE FRITTERS, CRITTERS, won a Parent’s Choice Award. SNOW ON SNOW ON SNOW was nominated for a Coretta Scott King Award.

Enchanted by her Grandma Orth’s tales about the German ancestors, Cheryl spent her junior year of college in Germany. A frequent visitor there, she collaborates with writer/storyteller/ educator Josef Mahlmeister on stories like SKYSCRATCHERS AND CLOUD-CATCHERS: Chicago to Cologne. Cheryl believes in making the world better, one story at a time! She does author visits locally and in Chicagoland schools of need and loves being known as "The Book Grandma" by the awesome kids in her life.

Working for peace and justice since the late 1960s, Cheryl's favorite line is: Waves are only straight lines gone interesting - so make waves! And her philosophy? Live your life as though you are writing your own story - because - you are!

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