Walking along Onondaga Lake the summer of 2020 I met a woman who told me about the Poster Project. That afternoon I wrote this haiku about an unforgettable kiss by that lake decades earlier – a snapshot of an innocent young couple in college starting life together.

This college romance led to a marriage proposal at our graduation dinner dance. He fell on his knees at the top of a formal, winding staircase, and a friend he grew up with took a photo I have to this day.

Our plans together were cut short, however, because thirty-three days later he died instantly in a car crash on the way to meet me. And yet, even once, even briefly, that glimpse of eternity sustains me. And although pain lasts a lifetime, so does joy.

There was a door to which I found no key
There was a veil past which I could not see
Some little talk awhile of me and thee
There seemed—and then no more of thee and me.
― Omar Khayyám