Richard Betz
I’m recovering from the rigors of a particularly pushy strain of Covid and I’m feeling particularly slow and stupid. Though the virus is receding in my rearview mirror, I’m still ridiculously enervated.
Just 30 minutes ago, just after 3:45 P.M., I fell asleep at my desk, as I was working on Donna’s Cover Artist story.
Over the years, a lot of you have heard me proclaim that my meeting the Final Deadline would be exquisite if I could fall forward onto my keyboard, my nose firmly wedged between “H” and “J.” But not now, Lord!
But this gives me a chance to relate the story of the Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi, who believed deeply in the therapeutic power of poetry.
In his poem “Reading the Classics While Ill,” Bai Juyi writes:
“While ill, reading brings comfort; poetic scrolls heal the heart better than prescriptions.”
This line beautifully captures the idea that poetry can soothe the spirit, calm the mind, and thereby aid the body’s recovery. Bai Juyi turned to literature as a balm, believing that the emotional equilibrium restored through poetic reflection could harmonize the body’s qi and improve health.
Bai Juyi was a figure whose work resonates with both literary elegance and social conscience. He was a poet, musician, and – hang with me here – the town administrator of Luoyang.
Which brings me to my friend Richard Betz, the former Highlands town manager.
In an essay about the remarkable people who’ve animated Kelsey and Hutchinson’s Great Experiment, I singled out Richard (and the indominable Geri Crowe) as “the wise and bright incarnation of Town Hall, who explained things to me that no Chamber of Commerce brochure could ever reveal. Even now, years after they left town service – they know things.”
Let me reiterate: Richard knows things – not simply the bewildering balance that keeps the town running smoothly, but the carefully-calibrated emotions and the natural rhythms and the odd twists of fate that keep all of us Plateau-dwellers moored to this Paradise.
You can find out for yourself in his latest collection of poems and notions – “Continental Divide.”
So there I was in bed yesterday, alternately sweating and shivering, when I came across this grace note from my friend Richard:
Duck Decoy
This is what I want
to do this morning
whittle away everything
in a flurry of shavings.
Everything false falls away
in the slick cam morning
where I watch and wait
for ducks to descend.
Conditions can be perfect,
but you never know.
Ducks are choosy and
my decoy is imperfect.
Only as good as these
Modest hands can carve.
In a silence this profound.
I should be praying, not hunting.
Right there, in four stanzas, Richard had delivered as brilliant an anatomization of my life’s work as a writer and editor as I’ve ever received. I was immediately galvanized!
Within those 71 words was a tonic with as much potency as any prescription my Tricia could write! It’s Chinese folk medicine delivered with Highlands insight and Plateau heart.
If you’re feeling that things just aren’t right, if your compass has drifted and you’re not quite sure where you are, if you need a companion on this journey who comes laden with wisdom and encouragement, I’d implore you to explore the works of my friend Richard.
Continental Divide is Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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