Doug Barrett
DOUG BARRETT served in the Japan West Mission. He holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington and has taught at Sierra Nevada College, Deep Springs College, and Western Nevada College. He has also been a camp counselor, wrangler, bank courier, retail clerk, postal worker, census worker, and academic labor organizer. His poetry has appeared in Avocet, Canary, Weber: The Contemporary West, and elsewhere. He currently resides in Maine.
Nativity Ode
Articles/Essays – Volume 59, No. 3
Christmas Eve
snow flurries creeping down the mountains
almost caressing cozy houses, bright-lit stores.
Something like sanctity sits upon the many-breasted hills.
Flux of Conversation
Articles/Essays – Volume 59, No. 3
Yet again through this house like a mountain stream
chatter has run down the pine-framed vistas
each landing’s distinctive prospect of Tahoe
pressed flat by early August heat
Momiji
Articles/Essays – Volume 58, No. 2
Recall, in your mind’s eye, this sight: two white-shirted figures
exploring the October hills above Nagasaki. enjoying the freedom
to talk unencumbered. “Sometimes,” you said,
“I think nature has a way of playing Bach to itself.”
A Little Death
Articles/Essays – Volume 58, No. 2
I was fasting that day when we went out into the farmlands
around Nagasaki, looking up referrals. After hours of walking,
we found ourselves on a ridge looking down on rice fields
and a tiny village
Crossing Over
Articles/Essays – Volume 58, No. 2
Sun-dappled redwood mist
bandtails flush, wrentits call through fiery green walls.
Chattering hikers returning from the still-inaudible sea
blindly pass a doe in the ferns.