Goodbye, Poetry in Motion; Hello, Train of Thought,

This spring, after 15 years, the MTA ended "Poetry in Motion," its excerpts or full versions of poems displayed in subway car and bus placards right along with the ubiquitous "If You See Something, Say Something" and community college messages. They were always a brain oasis and with O Tell Me the Truth About Love and A Little Tooth gave Chris and I material for B & C's 7/7/07 wedding.

The replacement, Train of Thought, intended, per the MTA, to "broaden the scope and content of the areas and authors we bring to subway and bus riders" sounded more lecturing than promising, but they got the first one exactly right, with E.B. White on the three New Yorks:

"There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something ….Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion."

And this, from John Stuart Mill from On Liberty, is not bad either:

"The only freedom deserving the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by sufering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."

Train may not be as grand a fifteen years as Poetry, but it's left the station well.