Twin paths that travel
a thousand miles side by side,
arms locked forever.

The inspiration for this haiku came to me as I was driving along an interstate overpass and saw the twin silver rods of a railroad winking at me through the trees below. I thought about how this pair of iron rails rides parallel from the beginning to the end of its track, unified but never intersecting or diverging from each other, even when crossing other lines. This struck me as a beautiful picture of harmony and a journey with a partner, much like the side-by-side partnership of marriage.

The final tie in the haiku came when I landed on the poem’s title “Union,” which captures the double meaning of a railroad and a marriage, hearkening to U.S. railroads like the Union Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad, as well as to the way railroads unite people and places and how marriages are a union where two people journey through life together.

While typical haiku focus on nature topics, I thought I’d allow this exception. Sometimes you can’t control when lines of inspiration come out in perfect haiku form, after all.