Odes to Adair Park · Track 11 · middle

The BeltLine West Trail

The BeltLine West Trail — the multi-use trail that runs through Adair Park's back yard, the joggers and dog-walkers and stroller-pushers, the way the trail reconnected southwest Atlanta to the rest of the BeltLine ecosystem in the 2010s. Sisukiro on the Saturday-morning walk.

Lyrics

[Intro]
It was sixty-two degrees.
October 12, 2019.
You smelled like new asphalt and old pine needles.

[Verse 1]
They opened you in December 2017.
A black ribbon laid down where the CSX freight used to rumble.
We stepped out from our backyards, blinking.
Found the old chain-link fence remnants, still clinging to the kudzu.
Found the ghosts of the tracks under the fresh pavement.

[Chorus]
And here we are now.
The Saturday morning walkers.
The joggers with their headphones in.
The dogs pulling on leashes.
The strollers pushed by new fathers.
You, the new vein, connecting us back to Murphy Avenue.
Connecting us back to ourselves.

[Verse 2]
I remember the day they installed the yellow safety bollards at Lillian Avenue.
The bright green Relay Bike Share docks that waited, hopeful, near the trailhead.
We watched our own bungalows from a new angle.
Saw the back porches we never used to see.

[Chorus]
And here we are now.
The Saturday morning walkers.
The joggers with their headphones in.
The dogs pulling on leashes.
The strollers pushed by new fathers.
You, the new vein, connecting us back to Murphy Avenue.
Connecting us back to ourselves.

[Bridge]
By the Sylvan Road underpass, there's a single telegraph pole from 1910.
Fourteen feet of ghost wood, watching the bikes go by.
It remembers the Mvskoke paths, maybe.
It remembers the Spanish-speaking day laborers who cleared all this brush in 2016.
The names we never knew.
The work that made the walk easy.

[Outro]
The smell of hops from Wild Heaven on the wind.
You gave us our back yard back.
You gave us the long view.
Good morning, trail.