My father used to call them stitches in the ground. He said they were just like mine, only bigger.
Big metal tacks of red-iron, breaking through the brush on planks of driftwood, placed methodically by his grandfatherβ a patriarch I will never meet.
Miles of them, pacing the landscape, allowing direction for us to walk. I asked how the ground cut itself so bad. He said it was an accident just like mine, only bigger.
I imagined an old man drubbing stretches of metal between wood and dirt; green earth-blood stemmed by scarred, titian hues.
My father used to call them stitches in the ground. He said it after I cut my arm open so I could feel better about it.
My son is in the hospital with new stitches. My father is deadβ a patriarch he will never meet. The tracks sit stolid and indifferent; red and brown between the buried remnants of timber stifling the undergrowth.