Hi, and welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, November 1st, 2003.

Today's poem is by the former poet laureate of the United States, Billy Collins,

and it's called On Turning 10.

I was reminded of this poem recently because my own eldest son, Samuel, just turned 10.

And musing on that sobering reality had me returning to this poem, and I thought I would share it with you all.

I'll read it, offer a few words, and then read it again.

Here's On Turning 10.

The whole idea of it makes me feel like I'm coming down with something.

Something worse than any stomachache 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

treehouse 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 goodbye 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.

...