On Turning Ten

The poem opens in media res, as though the speaker and the reader were already in mid-conversation; this intimate, conversational quality is a hallmark of Billy Collins’s work. “Coming down with something” (Line 2) is very likely a line the child picked up from his parents, something they would say to him when he went to them complaining of illness. He compares the feeling to the everyday plagues of childhood such as stomachaches and headaches, noting that this is something new altogether. It’s important to note that despite the feelings of dread, there is a degree of humor in this opening stanza. Words like “mumps” and “chicken pox” (Lines 6-7) are innately funny words to say, and they bring to mind a sense of dramatic hyperbole, akin to a child stubbing their toe and lamenting that they’ll never walk again. This gives the narrator an endearing and indulgent quality that fades away throughout the later stanzas.

In the second stanza the child speaks to an adult figure, which begs the question: Did they go seeking help? Did they go to a parent telling them they were “coming down with something”? Whether this opening line is in direct response to a line of unspoken dialogue, or whether it is in response to something they are only anticipating, is up to the reader to decide. Regardless, the opening to the second stanza shows that the narrator is feeling a sense of alienation—that there is no one who will help him, because no one knows how, or even really understands the problem. Ironically, this sense of alienation can be a very real part of being a grownup, and this may be the narrator’s first experience with it.

The child goes on to recount his experiences with magic and the various personas he’d adapted throughout each crystalline time period. Even at nine years old, the age he’s just about to leave behind, he’s still able to access that magic. Collins never once uses the word “pretend”; he lays these down as objective facts, things that really happened within the child’s world. He also intentionally uses broad, sweeping images that many readers can relate to. Instead of delving into detail about which specific army the soldier is fighting for or which kingdom the prince is ruling, they are left open ended so that the reader can see within them their own experiences.

In the third stanza, the narrator watches the light out his window, where can see his yard, including his tree house and his bicycle. This “late afternoon light” (Line 18) parallels the twilight of his childhood, drawing to an inevitable close after a long and rewarding day. He uses personification to project his own melancholy onto the light, seeing his own solemnity in the way it falls against the tree house. His bicycle, too, is seen in a new way, lackluster and stagnant, as though it has also lost its will to become more than it appears. The color “dark blue” (Line 23) contributes to the overall tone of the stanza.

The fourth stanza makes an unexpected choice by using the word “beginning” rather than “ending.” The narrator is no longer looking backward at what he has lost, but is looking forward at the life that stretches out in front of him. He “walk[s] through the universe” (Line 25) of his imagination one last time, suddenly small enough that he can do it in his sneakers. It’s also interesting that the sneakers are a physical object rooted in reality, something that the child is probably wearing in this moment. Instead of imagining himself traveling the universe in thousand-mile moccasins or a spaceship or a submarine, he is making his final journey as himself. He is already leaving some of that magic behind.

By the fifth and final stanza, all of the lighthearted humor that opened the poem has dissipated. The child reflects that he once believed he was indestructible, as all children do; with age has come a new awareness of his body, something that will be experiencing even more changes very soon. He believed that he was composed of light, energy, and magic. He has gained a new fear of the immovable, unforgiving obstacles in life, and a new understanding that when he falls—as he will, as we all do time and again—there will be nothing to protect him from the harsh realities of the world.