The Oak Tree Down The Block

The oak tree down the block,
diseased and old,
sent the cat,
diseased and old,
on his way.
The tree called me down the street
to take a strip of its bark
back into the house,
so the spell of diseased and old
could be broken.
And then like that,
in a matter of weeks,
the cat whom I had
lived with and loved for
seventeen years
passed away.
Then one day,
eleven days after the cat had died,
the oak tree conveyed unto me
on an afternoon walk;
that those seventeen years
I’d spent living and loving the cat
had been given back to me,
that time doesn’t always work
the way humans think it does.