And here is a play on Edward Thomas’s haunting poem, “Adelstrop,” so utterly memorable for its pastoral invocation and the name of the railway siding. This poem deals with the kind of persistent announcements in railway stations that would have been so unnecessary in Thomas’s day: “If you see anything that does not look right, report it.” We know what they mean, but do they really mean this? The poem begins on a note of sympathy for those modern Dantean wraiths, commuters.

adelstrop revisited

Familiar enough to each other,

After years of silent journeys

Unaware, though, of who exactly

Is who, or what brings each

To this daily shared procession,

They hear but do not hear

The official voice announces:

Should you see anything

That does not look right,

Report it. No one does,

And yet everything, to my eye,

Looks wrong, and therefore is not right;

It is not right that people

Should be indifferent

To one another; should not know

Who the other is, nor care, it seems;

It is not right that so many lives

Should pass in this way, bound

To a Sisyphean schedule

Of never-ending travel;

It is not right, it seems,

That there should not be time

To look at the sky, to stop

And walk slowly and breathe

The morning air before

Staleness sets in. None of that

Looks right; I report it,

And wait for a response,

And wait, and all the birds

Of Oxfordshire return and briefly sing.