The other day, in my office, Mr. Kangas (he agreed that I will use his name) told me that he was never a poet, but he did write a poem.

I asked myself, what determines what we choose to do, what we choose to be?

My story reads like a plot written by adults who conspired to convince me to become a doctor: When Dumitru, the chef at a Romanian restaurant in downtown Haifa, at the foot of mount Carmel, declared: “You, young man, should be a young-beautiful-women doctor,” my mother laughed.

“An obstetrician, you mean?” she asked.

“No,” the chef clarified, winking, “I mean a doctor for young, beautiful women.”

My mother laughed again. She thought Dumitru was hilarious, and she liked the Romanian kebabs he was making — they were plump and juicy, and smelled of heavenly garlic.

Then there was the real obstetrician, Dr. Ben-Bassat, a friend of my mother who lost her leg to diabetes and was going blind. At the request of my mother, I brought groceries to her apartment, about once a week.

Ben-Bassat was always kind. She asked me about school and what I would like to be when I grow up. She also recommended, how surprisingly, that I should become a doctor.

“You will fit the role perfectly,” she said, “because you are kind, and care for others. Besides, you are good-looking, and patients like that in their doctors.”

Did I mention that Dr. Ben-Bassat was going blind?

At the student-registration office at Tel Aviv University (back when applications were hand-delivered), the secretary who reviewed my application lowered her glasses, looked up, straight into my eyes, and simply declared: “with grades like yours, you should apply to medical school too.” I saw her words as divine intervention.

Besides, I almost forgot to mention my mom who, in the tradition of Jewish mothers, always wanted me to be a doctor. So, I am.

But, what if I was born into a family of poets, let’s say even successful poets who express their deepest thoughts and feelings in rhymes, who read their poems on BookTV, who enrich the lives of others with words of wisdom. Wouldn’t I, too, aspire to become a poet? Or at least a doctor who writes poetry?

Googling “doctors and poets,” I realized that had I chosen this course of action, I wouldn’t be the first to do so. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a physician practicing general medicine and pediatrics in Rutherford, New Jersey. He was also a poet who wrote some of his poems on a prescription pad.

In a poem This is Just to Say, he wrote: “I have eaten/ the plums/ that were in/ the ice box/ and which/ you were probably/ saving/ for breakfast/ Forgive me/ they were delicious/ so sweet/ and so cold.” As I read William Carlos Williams’ poem, I sense his guilt and share his pleasure, I feel the coldness of the stolen plums in my mouth, and taste their sweetness. And I suddenly want to practice poetry.

Here is my first attempt at poetry:

‏‪”Please, honey, don’t treat me like a comma, You can write me a sentence, if you wish, like in ‘I love you.’ 

‏With a strong subject and a moving verb, and a period at the end. Just like this.  

‏You can write me a paragraph in a story of war,

‏A knight in armor, on a horse,

‏I will fight for you, day and night, until death parts us,

‏You can write me a book, if you wish, a hard cover embracing a gentle soul, 

‏Yes! Tell me a story of serendipity, a voyage from seashore to midland, 

‏And how life shaped me from a rough rock into a river pebble, too smooth to grasp.  

‏If you must, mark me a question, point at me in exclamation.

‏A comma would make it all too clear, too obvious, and I want you to always wonder,

‏For the moment you solve me, I am an unwanted puzzle, in a crumbled box, with a missing piece in my heart. 

This is it. Was my poem any good? I am not sure. But, here is the thing: I wrote it as if I was playing a game with words. Just a game.

My patient’s poem, Mr. Kangas’ poem, is different, for when he recited it to me, I felt that it came from his heart. Here it is:

Life is not what you gather/ Life is what you scatter/ Share the seeds of knowledge, experience, honesty and respect/ That is how you will be remembered and your spirit will live on.

Simple, beautiful, inspirational. Perhaps what we end up doing is a matter of destiny, not mere serendipity. Perhaps I should forgo poetry altogether, and stick to my day job.

Dr. Shahar Madjar is a urologist working at Aspirus Keweenaw Hospital. He sees patients in Laurium, Houghton and L’Anse. Contact him at smadjar@yahoo.com.