Ros has strong country origins, having spent much of her childhood in the Barossa Valley and later, the Murray Mallee, before finally settling in Adelaide.
She taught for twelve years in high schools in the country and in Adelaide, and for one year in London, then raised a family of four children, and has been in TAFE in Communication Studies for the last fifteen years. She has a number of prose pieces in South Australian publications, and interstate.
She has been a member of Friendly Street since 1994, and contributed regularly to the Reader since No. 21. She has been published in “The Muse”, Canberra, and most recently in ArtSA, Spring edition 2000 and Winter edition in 2001. Ros co-edited with Shen the Friendly Street section of the “2000 Spring Poetry Festival” magazine.
Evening sun
The tree’s on fire – that tallest gum
heralds the final imprint of the sun
I watch by privilege or chance
each tortured leaf ablaze erect
while all around in shadowed dusk
bows in muted shades of deference.
As long as a breath it holds and then
begins its dimming slide,
I clutch at words, but light is
faster than the speed of thought.
From Friendly Street No. 22
Poets
I don’t want to be a poet
You’re not, says a poet – typical.
poets are not happy unless they’re
upsetting someone.
They’re losers, parasites, forever
feeding on the tree of misery,
haunted by loneliness – their best companion,
lost without somebody else’s pain.
in love with death,
constantly courting suicide.
they die early, often violently;
but sometimes just starve quietly away.
But they’re useful; they suffer
for all the rest of the world,
and they invented the elegy.
From Friendly Street No. 24
Parting the clouds
Expecting nothing from this walk
by the river, where bushes lush and squat
clung firmly to the bank, I was arrested
by the clouds below me, thick clumps
curdled in colours rich, spongy, but solid;
they seemed closer than above, where
unattainable in space, they lacked lustre.
Like a thief at a window, I stole
a glimpse from this watery eye,
fringed by reeds, of things
not readily seen, like the soft
underbelly of a fish, translucent,
exposed like the rawness of love
that images for a moment then
vanishes as the light changes.
I saw you there, in reverse,
a phantasm of love crouching
diffident, in a neglect corner,
unseen in day’s full glare.
From Friendly Street No. 26