Norman Clemens is a training and supervising analyst at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center and a councilor-at-large with APsaA. At the same time he has been a very active psychoanalyst, he has also been involved in an area that inspired the poem below. His wife became interested in conservation and tracking efforts regarding Monarch butterflies some years ago, raising them, feeding them milkweed, tagging and releasing them. She took part in counts from which the data was given to the Ohio Lepidopterist Association and National Butterfly Association. Norman participates in counting Monarchs periodically in some of the weekly counts of butterflies and their annual census. His poem makes one think about the delicacy and yet hardiness of these butterflies in their journeys and the same qualities that infuse analytic work.
Winds swirl across the great lakeBearing clouds of orange voyagersBorn of intricate metamorphosisFrom egg to caterpillar to chrysalisTo Monarch of the butterfly kingdomIn the fields of Canada and northern States,Great-grandchildren of last year's millionsClustered on the oyamel firs of Mexico's old volcanos.They light on the blossoms of Lake Erie's southern shores,Where once the Erie Nation was wiped outBy fierce marauding IroquoisWho in turn fell to French and English and those who followed,Now threatened by the products of their own ingenuityAnd largely mindless of their perilOr that of the voyagers visiting their fields,Fueling for the long flutter to ancestral haven.
Sheri Butler, M.D., is an adult training and consulting analyst and a child consulting analyst in the child division at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. A published poet and member of TAP's editorial board, she welcomes readers' comments, suggestions, and poetry submissions at .