Some people are meant to sit beneath oak trees.

Some are meant to sing
opera on stage
to appease the masses
themselves with applause.

Some whistle wistful tunes
slowly.

Some are meant to sew
skin back together
or look for cures
to stop what can only be delayed.

Some are meant to dance.

Some people will drink
a hundred dollars in a bottle of red.
Some climb, or do calculus,
or hold children in rocking arms.
Some graduate from the highest prestige,
or die hand over heart.

I met a fisherman
named after his father.
He smoked and swore and sinned
just like the rest of us,
and begged to face God in a fistfight
just like the rest of us.
But, when the sea is silent,
when the fish are caught
“eyes black and blue”
he reads poetry,
ponders his own life's poetry,
just like the rest of us.

I like to think,
all are good.
All are God's children
but I pray to a unique god.
Just like the rest.

Some people are meant to sit beneath oak trees.