Mvskoke Paths to the Peachtree Creek

Lyrics

[Intro]
Before the postmaster had a name to give it.
Before the railroad had a line to draw.
There was only the quiet argument of the water.

[Verse 1]
The land slopes south. Always south.
From the ridge where the loblolly pines hold the high ground.
Down through the gullies of red Georgia clay.
Each tributary of the Peachtree, each fork of the Nancy Creek, a question.
Each confluence, an answer.
This is the first map.
The only one that never lies.
It was written in drainage, in gravity, in the patient erosion of a billion April rains.

[Chorus]
And you can read it, if you know how.
Stand on the asphalt of a parking lot behind the antique mall.
Close your eyes.
You can feel the pull.
The old Mvskoke path is still there, under the storm drain.
It follows the water.
It always followed the water.

[Verse 2]
We have no names for them.
No census from before the treaties.
No journal entry from the man who kept this trace clear of fallen branches.
No account from his wife, his children.
Just the logic of a body moving through the seasons.
A path from the summer hunting grounds to the winter camp.
The smell of wet pine needles at dawn.
The taste of clay dust in the dry afternoon.

[Chorus]
And you can read it, if you know how.
Stand on the concrete platform of the MARTA station.
Close your eyes.
You can feel the dip in the land.
The old Mvskoke path is still there, under the third rail.
It follows the water.
It always followed the water.

[Bridge]
A British surveyor, in a tidy hand, on a fragile map from the 1780s, noted a single line.
'Old Indian trace.'
That's all we have.
A footnote in a foreign script.
The ledgers of removal are blank for this particular hollow.
The voices are gone.
The path-keepers are ghosts of hydrology now.

[Outro]
The water doesn't keep a record of names.
It only remembers the way down.
South.
Toward the river.
The path is still there.
Listen.