Whenever I read poems, I always imagine the poets to be sublime, superhuman and magical. In my mind's eye, they have purple eyes and skin that glows; they live in forests and talk to animals; they can time travel; they don't have belly buttons. So, I am always a bit nonplussed by the actual authors themselves, ordinary men and women who are going bald, have circles under their eyes, wear sweaters, go for jogs in the park, and fill up on gasoline just like anyone else. Billy Collins in one such person: an ordinary man with an extraordinary ability to create poetry that sends electricity through my brain. His writing has such depth and accessibility that it compels me to read more. Here's one of my favorites:
On Turning Ten
by Billy Collins
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
