FOLLOWING TRACKS

On my daily walk this summer, I watched as workers spread slurry over the street. They left a road that was pristine black and smooth as a new chalkboard. The next day, I noticed impatient tire tracks coming out of driveways, carving out the slurry before it was completely dried.

In the next couple of days, animals came down from the dewy grasses on the hills to walk across the street and left muddy prints of their passing. The deer hooves I recognized. And the small dog prints. I followed the track of an animal as it meandered from one side of the road to the other, up a hilly space and across another section of road. The tracks could have been a dog off-leash, but it also could have been a coyote, whose howls we hear regularly. I took photos and compared the two types of prints online. I couldn't distinguish the two. I needed a more experienced tracker than I am. 

A mystery unsolved.

Each day as I walked, new trails crossed the road. First, the road itself began to crack in places as the earth shifted under it. Mountain bike tires, possibly a rabbit, one foot of a squirrel perhaps, and of course, humans left their marks.

On one cross street where the crows congregate every day, white splashes of poop dotted the pavement.

During the lightning storms a couple of weeks ago, the trees let go of many of their dry leaves, crowding the gutters and spilling into the roadway. In a few short weeks, the pristine black pavement started to disappear into patterns and textures, absorbing the life that ventured upon it and telling a mysterious story.