BeltLine's Edge: A Future Unfurling

Lyrics

You were a ghost of a railroad.
Just rust and kudzu thread.
A secret scar between the houses.

You were a line on a thesis page in nineteen 1999.
A student's dream of a different kind of city.
Just paper and fluorescent light.
Outside, your iron was sleeping.
Your gravel bed was forgotten.
Home only to what grows in the cracks.

Now you're the new pulse, the concrete stream.
A ribbon of sound and motion.
The whir of the scooter, the runner's soft drum.
You breathe with the city's breath now.
You are the future, unfurling.

I remember that October, two thousand and twelve.
The strange new blacktop, smelling of tomorrow.
The first tires rolling, hesitant and then bold.
And the glass walls started rising beside you.
Patios smelling of coffee and craft beer.
A whole new skyline reflected in sunglasses.

And you're the new pulse, the concrete stream.
A ribbon of sound and motion.
The whir of the scooter, the runner's soft drum.
You breathe with the city's breath now.
You are the future, unfurling.

But this new current, so strong, so fast...
Does it remember the quiet that it passed?
The price of the ticket, the rising of the rent?
The old front porches watch you, wondering where it all went.
You connect the neighborhoods...
...but do you connect the people?

Still, you run on.
Towards Memorial, towards Piedmont, towards what's next.
A green line drawn on a map of what could be.
Unfurling.