I dream of dragonflies that strake
a canvas lake of lavender  
and angle air like Pleiades,
obliquely seen when searched askance,
in sidelong hints of iris blurs
that camber where the dogwoods turn
sidereal with ghostly primes—
and deem their arial sublimes,
their contrapuntal play of course
as harbingers of renaissance
when naiad bound beneath their mail
they shed from draped subsidences 
in caisson deeps of dark confines,
adrift in febrile underworlds,
to waken where the body breaks
and waters of the old life fill
each leaven wing with scales of glist
that fledge with light and gilded dust,
and rise into their swerves of flight
like eldritch flames of seraphim 
who guard the trees of paradise.

When I awake I’ll follow them
along the stopbank riverbends,
the lash spill streams that spate from fields
with backflow into strath and silt,
and watch their scribbled colors brush
with cursive zigs that feather stitch
the cresson baize of mirror ponds,
and squint to trace their opal scorch
across green surfaces of gloss 
that reave mosquitoes in their drafts
and drink diagonals from glades—

And learn to live again returned
to simple acts forgotten found,
a word of kindness without cause
or cares that earn no more than done,
and lose the nettle serpent’s tooth,
the dispensations for remorse,
the ranks of prominence revered, 
the subtile spheres of suntrap truths
that rapture loose from happenstance.
A death survived is still a death
addorsed with rousant birth and time.
How long our days, what might have been 
are earthly thoughts for afternoons
of bowed repine until we dare
at sorrow’s brink absolve regret 
and reconcile with fortune’s thief,
the stolen hours unrestored,
the murmurations of defeat,
and consummate a gradience
of change and form like dragonflies
that interlace the last of stars
with necklace rain the cobwebs pearl
and morning sun once more reclaims.

Claude Barbre, Ph.D., L.P., is Distinguished Full Professor, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. He is Course-Lead Coordinator of the Psychodynamics Orientation, and lead faculty in Child and Adolescent Studies. He is also a Board Member and Supervisor at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, Chicago IL. Dr. Barbre served for 12 years as Executive Director of The Harlem Family Institute, a New York City school-based, psychoanalytic training program. Author of prize-winning articles, books, and poetry, Dr. Barbre is a five-time recipient of the international Gradiva Award for “outstanding writing in psychoanalysis and the arts.” He is also the recipient of the 2022 Distinguished Psychoanalytic Educator Award from IFPE for “outstanding contributions to psychoanalytic education,” and the 2022 Joanna K. Tabin practice in Chicago Award for Exceptional Public Service, presented by CCP. He is in private practice in Chicago, IL.