After Brunch Journal

The distance reflected in eyes that

look out across hills ravaged by the

sun and drizzle that are the sum of

our days, the backpack still stuffed

with an umbrella more suited to

months harsher in different ways,

but the coat worn anyway in defiance

of the warmth that seeps through the

pores of morning and the light that

settles over the distant hills that

mark the boundaries of his perambulations,

day by day testing the limits of his

endurance against that of a landscape

rising sharply, falling along the

length of his days, measuring eternity

against the height of a slag heap, the

dirty river flowing through the valley

soured by the season home to gnats,

hatched flies beached upon the high

tide of the month past, if rested,

then surveying the distance to hills

that betray days and months and years

that find him between one and the other,

gazing placidly, happy with his lot,

knowing only that to cease is to cede

to the still sour river beneath.

About the Author

J.M. Summers was born and still lives in South Wales. Previous publication credits include Poetry Wales. Another Country from Gomer Press and various other magazines / anthologies. The former editor of a number of small press magazines, he is currently working on his first collection.