Poem Analysis: On Turning By Billy Collins

The chance to go back and hang my arms from a tree, sit in an elementary class, deciding whether or not to sign up for the talent show, or audition for the high school play. That compared to writing a sixty-page thesis, watching my best friend’s casket being lowered into the ground, or diagnosed with stage four cancer followed with Major Depression. The two compare quite drastically, as it is looked upon that our younger years, full of pureness and perfect simplicity, are sought upon to be relived. Though the future has many blessings and beauties, it also holds the knowledge of good and evil, the fall of man displayed for all to see.

Time is wished to be rewound, because such precious years, may it be as a child or a college sophomore, are much simpler and easier as the latter years. To be at the age of ten, and to live it for all its worth, instead of missing the other childhood pastimes, would be more than anyone could ask for.
This message of wanting that wish can be seen through one of the strongest languages and most powerful; a poem.
How can these feelings be relatable, ones that inspire to live life to the fullest?

In the poem, “On Turning Ten”, Billy Collins communicates to the readers that the future and present can often be negatively over exaggerated and that all stages in life should be live with enjoyment because, that time will never come
again.