Poetry in Motion: Subway by Billy Collins

This Poetry in Motion poster on the subways is still hanging around, as it went up in 2016:

Subway                  Billy Collins, b. 1941

As you fly swiftly underground
with a song in your ears
or lost in the maze of a book,

remember the ones who descended here
into the mire of bedrock
to bore a hole through this granite,

to clear a passage for you
where there was only darkness and stone.
Remember as you come up into the light.

~ ~ ~

Visit the MTA Poetry in Motion page here.

Bios of the poet and the artist whose work in the subway that serves as the backdrop for the poem above, which was one of three released in 2016, appears on the site here. You can also click on the Poetry in Motion tag at the bottom of the post to see prior BillyBlog posts about the series.