By: Shannon Gao

Collins utilizes this poem to describe how people focus so much on trying to find the meaning in a piece, that they fail to merely enjoy learning about it. The author uses five stanzas to describe how the narrator wants people to experience their poem and only two stanzas to describe how people actually do experience it. This 5:2 ratio parallels how the poet hopes people will organize their time while engaging with his poems because it would take more time to read five stanzas rather than two stanzas. The author also sets a peaceful tone using words like “probe”, “walk”, and “feel” in the five stanzas dedicated to his hopes for the reader.

By utilizing these softer works he describes how he wants someone to read his work. When I think of “probe” I think of a space probe on Mars crawling around to explore the planet, to “walk” isn’t like running because you have the time to look at the surroundings, and to feel is different than harsh words like “beating” and “torture” in the other two stanzas. When I think of why someone would beat or torture someone, it’s because they want an answer (like in jails they torture someone to get them to plead guilty). Together these worse, all of which denote patience/thoroughness and haste/aggressiveness, create for the poem the meaning: to learn, experience, and take our time. Rather than be hasty and try to find meaning.