Hummingbird Featured Poem.
The Loved Ones
By Wendell Berry
The loved ones we call the dead
depart from us and for a while are absent. And then as if
called back by our love, they come
near us again. They enter our dreams.
We feel they have been near us
when we have not thought of them.
They are simply here, simply waiting
while we are distracted among
our obligations. At last
it comes to us: They live now
in the permanent world.
We are the absent ones.
Curator’s Note. Poet and writer Wendell Berry died last week. The ongoing outpouring of love and gratitude to Berry for his work and perspective continues. The Loves Ones was published in The New Yorker in November 2025. There are so many “life truths” in this poem. Mostly the turned perspective that our loved ones who have passed are in the “permanent world,” and it is we, the living, that are transient, not the other way around. And, they come to us, letting us know that when we get where we are ultimately going, they will be there waiting.
