Shrouded Shore: The Many Musings of Thom Singleton

  A December Amble The reflection of a birch grove along the shore pierces the still lake waters. While mid-lake ice is aglow in the sun, open water inshore sparkles. Great white pines sing their soughing songs in the soft, southerly breezes. A small, furry head breaks the surface of the lake, muskrat on the hungry hunt for cattail. Me, too, I’m happily on the hunt, on the hunt for harmony.

  Optical Illusions An eye catches mine on a lake shore walk, an eye of wood, driftwood, a dreamy eye of a creature at rest in the sand. Returning through the woods,I spy other eyes winking at me from the beech tree’s bark, its gray smoothness interrupted by eye-like knots. In a clearing, I look up and see a ship of clouds sailing the blue sea. Ever see a stony visage in a rock or a stump you’d swear was a bear? Turns out there is a name for these optical illusions, pareidolia, seeing familiar images in objects, images that aren’t, in reality, there. It’s a survival skill that humans, alert for danger, learned long ago to gain time to prepare a defense in case that stump really was a bear. Nowadays it’s fun to come across these visions of the imagination. Right now, I have a strange feeling I’m being watched. Oh, it’s only the face on the maple outside my window. He does look vaguely frightening, like one of those masks, worn by people in various cultures to scare away the evil spi...

  The Long Knife Like a knife, the canoe cuts the water along its length, carves out the present from its future and past. One with the canoe and water, the paddler, in the know and in the now, sculpts a course   through what is sometimes peaceful, sometimes troubled, but always uncharted. He cannot allow his thin blade of a boat to be capsized in the rocks or rapids. So, too, it’s ours to navigate the river of life, attentive, balanced, alert for what lurks,  ready to stay the course or cut a new one through its swirling currents.

  Noctilucent What shines each night, an ethereal light, The lustre of Luna flickering through a filigree of branches. Moonglow caught in the owl’s eye is enough for him to hunt. So, too, the fox makes his nightly prowl in the pale ambience. When Sun’s revelations fade, it becomes a different world, bathed in the light of night, A shadowy world known to them, and others like them, not us. The owl hoots in celebration.  

  Looking East Out My Window Red streaks and blue in the sunrise sky Another streak of red in the grass going by A red squirrel heads for the seed where it lay Then he’s chased away by the squirrel in grey The cardinals and chickadees pay them no mind For only they can reach the feeder as designed Atop a pole of four inch pipe that squirrels can’t climb I’ve finally figured out a way to deny ‘em Meantime the deer herd is polishing off The jack-o-lantern pumpkins that in the woods we tossed To add to their meager late fall menu Large orange carbohydrates in their forested venue

  Winded-In on Saganaga The wind is up, the quicksilver wind,  Waves of wind in the water, Its texture today quite rough. Wispy spindrift blows off the crests, Softens their dark to a silvery lustre, And a froth of bubbles when they pound the shore. No chance to launch the canoe today, Just write, relax, recover. And experience the water’s power. And, look, somebody spilled merlot in the sky, A sunrise for amazed eyes. Fish from shore, take a hike, we’ll paddle again tomorrow.

  The Era of Kummerspeck In English, “grief bacon,” excess weight gained from overeating during emotionally trying times.                                                                                               -The Book of Random Oddities Feeling lonely and blue, need somebody to talk to, And can’t due to the virus? Add to your adipose, to coin a term, get gorgimous. Fill the void with foodstuffs. Want to be e...