I don’t read nearly enough poetry but, chancing upon a reference to Philip Larkin, I picked up my copy of his collection The Whitsun Weddings. I’ve always loved the title poem which was inspired by a train journey which the poet made from Hull to London on Whit Saturday, 1955.
It is a description of a journey but also a series of evocative series of philosophical reflections on the people and places he sees along to way.
You can read the full poem here but I particularly love this part:
“They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
-An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl -and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:”
