Obscure the view into
the neighbour's yard, build the fence
a screen of poplars evenly spaced
neatly hide the razor wire
Trellis yes, that's the way to go
and wend the ivy lies between the gaps
Grow the foliage lush with prejudice
Better still, grow an ocean between us
It's easier not to see
when your eyes are closed
Our hands are rusting with inaction
or perhaps it's just dried blood

​Sculpture by Bronek Kozka "Offshore Processing'

Poem by Kathryn Ross
​April 6th 2016



Copyright Kathryn Ross 2016

Bring possessions
whittled meagre
wedding photo pre-war
black and white
some cardigans, a nylon dress
a stack of 'New Idea's
and hold your handbag close
although there`s only token notes
you won't need money here

He was only five years old, he died you know

And bring your memory 
whittled thin
threadbare like the hallway rug
where all the traffic's been
a doily draped
and laced with holes
They keep the hallways spotless
but there's stains on all the chairs
And how is it that I'm still here, alive

He died, my little one, when he was only five

And bring your families,
grandchildren
It's just like home
they're welcome, anytime
My other son, why he's grown now
Yes, he'll be in to visit soon
Maybe even this afternoon
He's busy though, the job, the kids
the weekend sport, that's how it is

Did I tell you that I had a child that died?



Written by Kathryn Ross 

April 5th, 2016



Copyright Kathryn Ross 2016

I was among five poets asked to write a poem for the Geelong After Dark festival. Each poem was based on a different artefact from the Geelong Heritage Centre. My assigned piece was a Shepherd's smock from 1848 hand sewn by the mother of John Crook for his journey from England to Australia. He was one of the earliest settlers in the Barrabool Hills around Geelong.

That which preserves us ~

written word, resin turned amber,a photograph, a sprinkling of salt, a song, a simple shepherd's smock

Folds of time, weathered linen

sepia stained and ageing

A browning and a fraying at the edges

Imagination animates the empty sleeves

His shadows lengthen into present

Though flesh and blood have long become of dust

Can the touch of cloth translate into love

A mother dreams it so

A son borne into a land

as calloused as the palms of his hands

She weaves a love into his days

stitch by careful stitch

Fingers numb wending thread

An unforgiving fabric

This beloved toil is silent prayer

A chant her fingers sing

Repetition in the stitches

A feeling is intangible

but this... this is love made manifest

That which preserves us ~

Mothball scatterings, pervading scent of deterrent

The careful hand of generations

A wrap of tissue paper blue round treasures

deep in wardrobe recess

Bound in the knowing

That to touch a memory is something precious

Written by Kathryn Ross.        May 2015

Copyright Kathryn Ross 2015

Our sons held flowers

in open palms

spun golden thread

from air so thin

it hurt to breathe

it in, and broke

the many hours

it had been

since schoolboys roamed

embattled fields,

their lowered guns

directing aim

at borrowed time,

at holes

fresh cleaved

in garden beds

spades for seed,

petunias, poppies

see them bleed

petals stain

the dirt, shoots of green

to salve the hurt

guns cocked

with dandelions

weaving tenderness

links in daisy chains

the blessings

of the benign

of innocence

uttering the names

of every little man

unhand unarm

offer peace

lilies and open

palms, amen.

Written by Reka Jellema and Kathryn Ross

February 2015

Copyright Kathryn Ross and Rela Jellema 2015

1.
A sky full
of intangibles
The veins of our leaves
grew trees
River planted, skyward flung
Suppose we weep or shiver
every extremity
crescendos into fugue

2.
Raking
the wind
scooping wrens
into nests
our trunks bellowed
elephant knees,
elbows, we shuffled
gaudy with red
and yellow

3.
As we allow
the shadow`s play on skin
let`s rest awhile, my love
beneath a leafy aspect
Spreading blankets
let the soft caress
run over us
As unfelt touch
As language we`ve yet
to decipher

4.
Ever more
than bough or bark
Roughed up, prickled
Bearing fruit and seed,
sticky with pine sap
aloof or bowed
We are the leaves
dependant
on the stem
Connections break
A slip, a grounding,
We are ever more
than our discardings

5.
Oh the glorious arching
Monet`s finery
undressed
Limbs stretched
in forward bend
Driving cars
beneath a slender grace
Fingers meet above
their heads
Light falling as rain

6.
A stand of trees
Roots ingrained
in sandy soil
Sustained and sturdied
by ten thousand particles
Becoming one
with debris decomposing

7.
Bits of bone
the lesser relics
of these urchins once
Arboreous, we are host
who live in thee
and sup upon
thy sap and stroke
the slippery green

8.
And in our rings
a wisdom and a history
Stories wrought
That tell of fire, drought
Of chilling winds
Of hindered growth
Lines concentric
As the rhythm of a season
Eulogies for all who care
to read them

9.
Twining ivy wends
a thinning crown
The rusted claws
burrow ever deep, upon
the mass of us
Pollards, cankers
pruning cavities
Our bodies pucker
hedging toward
conformity

10.
needles skitter
scatter soft
a knitted throw
of forest floor
and moss
Hither, yon
hardwood knock-
kneed over-toppled
A tired majesty
at rest upon
a quiet quilt
Step lightly round
the fallen

11.
Battened planks -
brothers from another life,
embedded nails in flesh
The rooms they built
The blossom plucked,
arranged in honey jars
Gazing down
on lives arrayed
in verdant expectation

12.
Do this for me
Do nothing here
but be
breathe
I reach and reach
Still
all who enter, 
you shall not come
closer to the truth
than now
Stilled by us
En masse

Written by Reka Jellema and Kathryn Ross


Copyright Kathryn Ross and Reka Jellema                  December 2014

When every other track
is scratched or worn away
Nancy, sing the songs of yesterday


Nancy
how could you forget
the blueness of your eyes

was it..
the careless placement of your glasses
yet again
or the cardigan you left behind
at our favourite restaurant

remember? 

our silver wedding dinner
or was it..

the slow bleach
of your best-loved blouse
thin at the elbows
from so much living

a TV noonday
bathes your skin
the turning
the turning of pillows
and the hems
of a childhood song
gathered tightly in

was it..
you sang them to me
or we sing to them

Nancy
I have folded
your cardigan for you
I went back for every
one of them

was red
one was blue
and scented of the lilacs
in some year ending in two


Written by Kathryn Ross and Brendan Bonsack            February 2015


Copyright Kathryn Ross and Brendan Bonsack 2015

For the close ones
swimming through these days with me

the safest shore -
I reach for it when seas
would gutter ground 
beneath me

taking detour
from these days
of steering
frantic lines of a to b

toward friendship simple
as a burnished ring
balanced in it`s curvature

and brilliant white -
sunlight`s stream
through leafy glade

no end and no beginning

how the glittered water 
speaks of depths
we neither 
could imagine

but oh the shore -
the landing

sings to me
in language simple
as the lap of wave, easy
as the beat of wing

sings to me
the song of everything

written by Kathryn Ross                                 December 2014


Copyright Kathryn Ross 2014

rocks sing
your corroboree
the pound of feet
on sand
a hand that touched
embedded shells
black with middens
charcoal
buried bones
beneath the marching out
of time
in a place remembered
by birds and trees
and fragments of song
listed in breezes
and whispered in grasses
and brushed
by the handprint of tides

Written by Brendan Bonsack and Kathryn Ross                                           November 2014


Copyright Kathryn Ross and Brendan Bonsack   2014

Along the beach
we`re gathering
bits of string, rope,
fish bait packaging
candy wrappers - two, 
a piece of plastic, sand-scraped,
only just blue

And a message
sent by bottle that day
A colony of mollusc
Adapted to this smooth
machine-made surface,
washed onto the shore

A slow invasion

Enclave of creatures
their science fiction
features writhe
smaller than our fingers
larger than life

Life as we know it
One man`s trash
and all that

If the sea cannot
swallow you,
the sea will 
give you back


Written by Brendan Bonsack and Kathryn Ross                                October 2014



Copyright Kathryn Ross and Brendan Bonsack 2014