Seasons of a Small Town

About this Story

An almanac in poems. Eleven months in Wheatland, a town on the high plains where the feed store opens late in January and the elk come down off the ridge in November. Abel Pemberton, a former newspaper editor, writes with the patience of a man who has spent thirty years watching his neighbors at close range and learning to say less. A widow works the counter. A coach stands on a stage he never asked for. A mother returns to a pew she stopped sitting in. The town itself is the protagonist, and the year its slow, stubborn argument. These are poems in the plainest American speech, linked by prose that moves like a man walking the block between the post office and the diner, noticing what is there.

Chapters

1. 1 January The Feedstore Opens Late
2. 2 February Ice In The Pickup Bed
3. 3 March First Grackles
4. 4 April The High School Play
5. 5 May Planting Rain
6. 6 June The Widow At The Counter
7. 7 July Fireworks And The Volunteer Fire Department
8. 8 August Drought And A Funeral
9. 9 September The Football Season Opens
10. 10 October The Harvest Wagon
11. 11 November The Elk And The Election

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