Cormorant Wildfire Blues

Meg Freer

For branches wide enough to perch
and build their shallow nests upon,
their damp wings opened to the sun,
these birds choose willow trees, not birch,
their turquoise eyes not fit to search
for distant fish, their lofts homespun
for branches wide.

The smoke and haze from fires besmirch
the sky. At dawn, an orange sun,
and flames jump rivers, loss begun.
The cormorants begin a dirge
for branches wide.

The Science

There have been several small wildfires fuelled by dry conditions in southeastern Ontario the last few years. Many people now monitor air quality daily in summer. Wind can carry smoke from more massive fires in western Canada 2000 miles east so that the sun turns dark orange here, and the air is polluted with brown haze.

The waterways are busy with bird life, and this poem considers how large numbers of cormorants could be affected by wildfires. Cormorants, however, are not universally liked and create their own pollution. They can be noisy, and their highly acidic guano can kill the trees they nest in and damage their surroundings. My poem uses the particular rhythm, rhyme scheme, and repetition of the French rondine form to evoke the cyclical nature of wildfires, their duality of destruction and regeneration, and a bit of the anxiety provoked by greater frequency of fires and longer fire seasons. 

The Poet

Meg Freer grew up in Montana, and now enjoys the outdoors in Kingston, Ontario. She ​holds two music degrees, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing, and has published four poetry chapbooks. She is a member of the Ontario Poetry Society and the League of Canadian Poets​ and is Poetry Co-editor for The Sunlight Press. During 2024-25, she served as Poet-in-Residence for the McDonald Astroparticle Physics Institute at Queen’s University. Her prose, photos, and poems have been published in many journals, and her debut full-length poetry collection will be published in 2026 by DarkWinter Press.

Next poem: Fly-tipping by Craig Dobson