To have loved is everything,
I loved, once, a hummingbird who came every afternoon– the freedom-loving male–

who flew by himself to sample the sweets of the garden, to sit on a high, leafless branch with his red throat gleaming.

And then, he came no more.
And I’m still waiting for him, ten years later,

to come back, and he will, or he will not.
There is a certain commitment that each of us is given,
that has to do with another world,

if there is one.
I remember you, hummingbird.
I think of you every day even as I am still here,
soaked in color, waiting year after honey-rich year.

Mary Oliver, An Empty Branch in the Orchard