A new decade. Looking back a hundred years ago, I shudder. Earth had just endured a world war and a flu epidemic, only to fall back into conflict less than two decades later. We stand on some brink today. Jackson Browne’s lyrics haunt me: “Oh people, look around you, the signs are everywhere, you’ve left it for somebody other than you, to be the one to care . . .” Look up the rest. I’ve turned to my singing, having put it aside in the throes of this book launch. Browne’s was the sheet music poised, and waiting, on my stand.

I’ve a friend who, in her seventh decade, has taken up singing lessons. I applaud her courage. And not for reasons one might suppose. To make a concerted effort to raise one’s voice in song, in these strange times, beats burying one’s head in the sand of despondency. Which would be easy. Candace Christofferson is an artist, just so, and she will succeed, given her voice is a willing instrument tuned to her will. It has a “whisky” timbre to it, and I envision her before a microphone and stand in a darkened club, blue light beaming down on her, giving it her all. She’s that kind of performer. An artistic one. While I, on the other hand am more timid, and lean into my guitar as shield. At readings, I suppose I could pretend my open book is my guitar and take comfort there. And courage.

Candace is responsible for my novel’s striking cover art. Generous to a fault, she allowed the use of the image. Here it is sans mark-up. And right-side up. Crows are a motif through my series, and attracted to bright, shiny objects. They are Watchers of Great Penetration; just what an artist must be. Poets, too.

Patricia Frolander, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Wyoming, penetrates her environs and its secrets in her newest collection, Between the West Pasture and Home. The titular poem, about faded blood on a saddlebag, whispers its evidence from a fading decade. Pat, my elder—like Candace—shows me doorways and possibilities.

We count time in decades as we age. Minute eras. Miniature eons. We have a decade, the scientists predict, to rearrange our response to climate needs, or catastrophe ensues. See the red ball to the left? Could be a blood moon. I see it now as Earth. And I shudder anew. The crow is a harbinger, yes, Senga Munro’s spirit animal along with Bear, Totem of Healers. Crow balances on Time. But lo! Surrounded by a consciousness apart.

I liked the image for its serendipitous interpretation of my novel’s themes. But like everything else, it speaks to more than personal notions.

Let us continue to “live liberty,” as philosopher of wholeness Patricia Sun entreats. May we make art, sing, write novels and poems and histories and memoirs. May we live as though Peace were a matter of living it. On this 4^th day of a new decade, may Peace Prevail.