Thomas Erickson

About Place Journal, Volume II Issue I
Trees

 
The Tree
 
Early one morning
an Amsterdam city worker
will drive his truck
to 263 Prinsengracht Street.
He’ll take his chain saw
and cut a wedge-shaped
piece of wood from the base
of the chestnut tree
that is now over
a hundred years old
and blighted (the tree may
creak in the wind).
 
He may not even notice
the attic window
where Anne Frank gazed
down on the tree.
 
He’ll tie a rope around
the trunk and pull
it down. The whole operation
won’t take more than
half an hour
not counting the wood-chipping.
 
 
 
Thomas Erickson is an attorney in Milwaukee, WI, who writes poems while sitting in court waiting for his cases to be called. He has had poems appear in several publications including The New Poet, Slant, Mobius, The Los Angeles Review, Mad Poet’s Review, and Freefall. His chapbook, “The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom”, will be published by Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin Libraries in 2013.