Kilmarnock
Kilmarnock
Tony Cosier
6 X 9 inches, 154 pages
BECOME INTRIGUED with the history and geography of the Rideau River with Tony Cosier. Having written a play based on the life of Jones Falls lockmaster, Peter Sweeney, Cosier, with his wife, then bought a stone cottage believed to be the oldest stone house in Montague township located on fifty acres of maple bush and within sight of Kilmarnock Lock. This book of poems is a celebration of their forest walks and hikes, of visits to museums, archives, and libraries, and of interviews with local residents.
A woman we know, hearing we had maples,
Sailed in right away with advice on how to tap,
Figuring we'd need a hundred acres treed
To make it viable.
A second, more delicate,
Who'd never spent an hour in the cold,
Pressed palms and remembered sugaring bees
With jingling harness, pans and pails, and children licking taffy
off the snow.
You, when I pointed to the square
And the sap flushing from it down the bark,
Simply tilted your head the way the rodent did
And pressed your tongue to the spot.
You called it good, and then moved on,
Content to leave sweetness pulling spring from earth,
Going where it should go,
Up through fibre into buds and dancing air.
—Sugar Maple
Tony Cosier
Author
Tony Cosier is widely published in literary magazines and anthologies nationally and internationally. He is the author of eight volumes of poetry, three plays and Ensemble, a book of short stories. Now retired and living in Ottawa, Tony Cosier is originally from British Columbia, and taught English at Confederation High School in Ottawa for most of his teaching career.
Check out his other captivating poetry titles here.