Dear Friends

Poems by

Patrizia de Rachewiltz

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYNDA SMITH

Dear Friends

BY PATRIZIA DE RACHEWILTZ

POETRY

Watertriptych: Passionfruit Across an Ocean, with art by Bianca Tangande (van Dijk & van Hees 1994)

My Taishan (Raffaelli Editore 2007)

Dear Friends, with photographs by Lynda Smith (Palisade Press 2008)

PROSE

Songs of the Peacock, with drawings by Tien (Paulist Press 1977)

TRANSLATION

Favole: Fables by e. e. cummings (All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro 1975)

Mr. Wind and Madame Rain by Paul de Musset (Edizioni C’era una volta 1994)

Pieroing by Soichi Furuta (Greco & Greco 1996)

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (Edizioni C’era una volta 1997)

Eros Pysche by Michael Lekakis (Raffaelli Editore 2007)

Your Eyes by Cesare Pavese (Palisade Press 2009)

Dear Friends

Poems by

Patrizia de Rachewiltz

Photographs by

Lynda Smith

Palisade Press: Arroyo Seco, New Mexico

Text copyright © 2008 by Patrizia de Rachewiltz

Photographs copyright © 2008 by Lynda Smith

Author photograph copyright © 2008 by Sylvie De Leu

All rights reserved

Edited and designed by Craig Smith

ISBN: 0-9818528-1-5

Printed in the United States of America

Front cover: “Trio” by Lynda Smith

Palisade PressPalisade PressPalisade PressPalisade Press

A line of bold cliffs, a shelf of bold books.

P. O. Box 401

Arroyo Seco, NM 87514

www.palisadepress.com

A Personal Note

For my wife, Lynda, and myself the best letters have always

come from our dear friend the poet Patrizia de Rachewiltz. We

met her in 1976 at her family home, Brunnenburg, in the

northern Italian village of Dorf Tirol (Tirolo di Merano). Lynda

and I, with our children Jay and Alison, had taken rooms in

Brunnenburg, with the idea that we would spend one year

abroad and dedicate ourselves to writing and art.

Our rooms were dubbed the Gaudier flat – named for sculptor

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, as several of his original figure studies

adorned the walls. These were accommodations that Patrizia’s

mother, Mary, often let to visiting scholars, writers, and artists.

When Patrizia arrived for the winter, we became fast friends and

spent that season together drawing and writing. Since that first

meeting we continue to enjoy regular reunions.

Our correspondence flows from mutual experiences and shared

interests, be they art and music, books and writing, traveling, or

simply navigating the ups and downs of our daily lives. For

Lynda and me, any day was instantly better if we opened the

mailbox and saw an envelope in Patrizia’s distinctive hand.

That correspondence has now expanded to include electronic

mail, so letters that take days to cross the ocean are

complemented by messages that arrive in seconds. Happily, the

speed of communication has tended to increase the volume of

correspondence. So we are only minutes from each other,

wherever we may find ourselves. From Merano to Manhattan,

from the Netherlands to New Mexico, Patrizia’s letters have

followed us wherever we lived. They give names to our seasons

and nourishment to our souls. What a friend!

Recently I was moved to look back through the letters she has

written to us over the years, and in them I discovered dozens of

little poems in paragraphs, between paragraphs, and in the

margins. I realized that they would stand well as a collection,

and so set about gathering them together. There is an old

Scottish proverb that says “guid gear gangs in sma bouk.” These

little gems by Patrizia prove that saying – the bulk may be small

but the gear is good. They show her at her most lean and precise,

able to fathom deep emotion in a few chiseled words.

As I assembled the poems Lynda was moved to contribute a

number of her photographs from the past and to create new ones

for this book. It was as if she was entering into yet another

conversation with Patrizia – this one like an unwritten

correspondence between them -- as one’s words inspired

another’s images. The result is a clear celebration of friendship.

Craig Smith

Taos, New Mexico

2008

Preface

A sheet of plain paper and a pen, which used to be a feather,

dipped into an ink-well….what a luxury! And words …”Dear

friends…” The waiting for a reply, the wondrous waiting. When

we entrust a letter to the winds it makes its perilous journey

across all distance, and the correspondence between my friends

Craig and Lynda and I has indeed crossed the ocean many times.

Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the

sun is setting over France. Only Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince on

his tiny planet could see the day end and the twilight falling

whenever he liked.

Our friendship born during a cold winter in South Tyrol has

continued for more than thirty years, kept solid and tended as

the growing of a rose-bush has to endure all seasons, by a loving

correspondence. Our lives intertwined with all their perilous and

fragile logics of love and pain, a sharing so overwhelming, a

faithful constancy that has had no boundaries, in all its

convoluted changes of growing and growing older.

That all these letters were kept is a small miracle. That our

friendship has thrived and blossomed and never waned is the

miracle of sunset and sunrise, my knowing they were always

there and their knowing I was always here.

Patrizia de Rachewiltz

Den Bosch, Holland

2008

Dear Friends

“It is now and now

and always now again.”

View of Vinschgau (Val Venosta): Brunnenburg, Italy, 1976

10

1111

I write to you from the kitchen garden,

late afternoon, branches green

and stirred by the wind, fields stretching out

with apple trees, not too heavily laden

because of the rains. Two days ago

I watched the clouds move a full moon.

Here I am. There you are.

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Warmth Waiting: New Mexico, 2008

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2222

I keep to my crucial activities.

Keep the feet warm in the bed.

Make the fire every day, shovel coal

and chop wood.

Gather my writing hours around me.

Wait for the mail.

Cook one warm meal a day

and fight against the wind outside.

In the evening I am exhausted,

and all is quiet. I listen to music

and try to read. But so much happens

between one word and another.

There are no words for that.

13

Dove at Dawn: New Mexico, 2008

3333

The morning bird calls

to awaken my heart.

A bird sings alone.

Another bird answers.

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4444

I would like to send marzipan and leaves

and joys hidden behind words.

I love the smile one smiles alone,

but know there is a more wonderful way

to say it. I know you know of a better way.

And so our smile

is the smile we don’t smile alone.

Send me yours.

16

5555

I heard your voice singing today.

It came through the silver leaves,

as the air was still and warm.

It came right down to where I sat

in my little garden,

with the white cherry tree, singing

“It’s me! It’s me! It’s me.”

I looked up

and looked straight into your eyes.

Heaven, what a moon!

17

6666

As I sadly lowered my eyes

to yours,

a gift was the answer:

two broken yellow wings

among the summer-ending shadows.

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