With the return of New York, the train once again runs 24 hours a day, let us stop and marvel at the earth-shattering miracle under our feet.

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When I jumped on the subway on 72nd Street and Broadway, I didn't think of Walt Whitman. My time is short, I just want to get down to Chambers Street as soon as possible before the courthouse in Ferry Plaza closes. But what happened on the first stop of my trip prompted me to parody a poem by Whitman myself. Call it the "Song of the Subway".

If Whitman lived longer and wasn't used to rushing, maybe he would immortalize the subway journey from Brooklyn to Manahata like he had already crossed the border by ferry. If he is by his side now—of course, he will always remind us that he is by his side—he might be ecstatic about how the subway was closed every night for the first time in its 117-year history a year ago. For a city that is off the ropes .

The word "infrastructure" is not poetic, and I'm sure Whitman has never used it. But I bet that he will treat the underground pipe running through Manhattan as another open road, which is equally commendable.

I know that the interval between line 3 line 72 and line 42 is not the longest in the subway system, and as far as I know, no one has ever made a tune on it. This distinction belongs to the section between Columbus Circle and 125th Street on Line A.

But the people behind New York's first subway line, called IRT and BMT by older generations (as opposed to the municipal bean counters of A and D that built IND about 30 years later), are dazzling. The stations they built are very beautiful-how else can the elegant rectangular tiles on their walls beautify the bathrooms of those who love to take trains? -Magnificent, featuring those wonderful, whimsical mosaics. Many have been repaired, and the cars passing through them are bright and shiny.

In contrast, the A and D lines completed under the leadership of Mayor LaGuardia are utilitarian for beginners and have rotted since then: although some cars can be traced back to Mayor Wagner , But since Mayor Impellitteri and O'Dwyer, the surrounding dirt does not seem to be affected. Even Whitman, who likes all manned vehicles, can't find any poetry about them. The trains on those intricate routes take eternal time to arrive, as if, considering their harsh destinations, they never really wanted to arrive.

But as soon as I walked into the old subway shelter on 72nd Street, that shelter with an elegant Dutch appearance, the display on the revolving door said "No. 3. Newlots Av" changed from pure yellow-green to pulsating Amber: My train is driving in. With the rapid swipe card and the explosion of stairs down the stairs that New Yorkers have perfected, I can do it.

As always, I surveyed the gathered people who shared the journey with me—another advantage of trains over anti-social taxis and Uber—and settled down. But another feeling quickly distracted me: after a slow start, the driver had already opened the accelerator.

It rarely happens. You always hear all those old hundred-year signals, which will take another hundred years before they can be replaced. And the ubiquitous "train traffic in front of us". And those bossy, anonymous dispatchers, we were told that they would always stop the train at the station. Or all kinds of unexplainable parking and slowing down, recording the festering wounds of the subway. But at least for this day, the train mobilized all its forces under its command, and soon galloped down the track-Whitman might say "career." The local sleepy backwaters of Broadway, its customers watched sadly on the platform, and flashed past-66th Street! 59th place! The 50th! -Take the back of the hand from the powerful and arrogant express.

There is absolutely nothing elegant about it—"the sweet and gentleness without your tearful harp or slick piano", as Whitman wrote in "Winter's Locomotive." But the subway in the summer is also purposeful, fierce, disdainful and provocative. The acceleration seems to brake more strongly after only a moment. Appearance and comfort are not important: as always, in New York, there is a place to go and work to do. It is true that this train is different from Whitman's train in that it does not spray the pennant, but it is also "throbbing" and "twitching."

Of course, no one paid attention; all eyes were on the phone. Miracles are often overlooked; airplane passengers also ignore the clouds. But, in such a dense and crowded place, is there anything that can slide through so easily? 120 years later, determined workers have drilled through all these schists and opened the way?

Complaining that the subway is an inherent right of New Yorkers born and raised. But for us Australians who are grateful, the most important thing about the subway is that it embodies the freedom we enjoy when we escape to New York, the freedom Whitman celebrates, the freedom to be the person you want wherever you want. , Free from the fetters of any other person's taste or clock or car.

In the few deals before dawn, as another poet once wrote, the streets of New York belonged to the police and the janitor with the mop. But after pulling in another overnight man, the subway was the reason for the policeman and the janitor to go to work. Let's admit it: this city, or at least most of it, is indeed sleeping. The subway has never been, at least before Covid. And now, rushing to Times Square, it is coming back to life 24 hours a day.

I stay on the train: I still have three leaps, under the other three civilizations, I still have to go. I have time to get there because when it rings, the subway even lets the procrastinators arrive on time.

But I think Whitman will get off the bus in Times Square, "relaxed and relaxed." As he heard the conductor say, there are more roads to explore: A, E, and C; N, Q, R, and W; the shuttle bus to the Grand Central, 7th floor, opposite platform. Or maybe he just went upstairs and went to Bryant Park to write another poem—a poem celebrating the return of the subway and the city.