Today – February 3 – I’m sending out Happy Anniversary greetings – and a big I love you – to my Mom and Dad. It’s their 55th wedding anniversary. I love you guys.

I remember where I was on their 30th anniversary. I was sitting in my car on a trailhead on a high buff overlooking a canyon, with the lights of Chico far below. I was in college, working as a security guard, assigned to watch a weather station. I had my dinner in a brown bag, a thermos of coffee, flashlight, a couple of text books, and my notebook for poems.

IN PASSING

I have spent these hours
in silence watching darkness
take this blue canyon
a little traffic
and the town lights
in the valley

A pair of mice eyes
like black seeds watched me
pass on a steep trail pushing
my little light to the end
of this road

I wonder what you’ve known
together what nights in quiet
canyons lights passing quickly
to rest in distant places
these thirty years

At sunset I saw a hawk
on a fence post far below
spread his wings and climb
beyond the light

– Kyle Kimberlin
from Finding Oakland © 1992

Click here to listen to this poem.