Alezandra Tolliver

You know how our earliest roads were made? The animals. Stamped in the soil as they made their way to water and safety. Their tracks set in earth, we learned the trails to avoid, like bear as well as the ones to follow, rabbit, deer. Soon our steps covered theirs as we migrated, homes on our backs and babies in hand. We brought our own animals. Rode them, too. Eventually we paved over our steps as proof that along here be salvation. And even as those roads become abandoned, retaken by the land, they still lead us where we need to be. Because underneath it all, the deer trail still exists. Deep and forgotten, it lies.