Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Three Nov-Dec 2026.
So much wrongdoing, poems by Karin Molde.
So much wrongdoing
after Bertolt Brecht, ‘To Those Who Follow in Our Wake‘, 1939
What is it about trees in our conflicted times?
I doubt my senses the way one does when lost
in the forest, craning your neck for all the small suns
hovering in tree tops. Judge the value of Brecht’s a-effect:
a lifeboat roped to the 1000-year-old oak
the red inflatable hanging from its branches
like strange fruit (forgive the quote but it singes)
lightning split the trunk but never made it fall
What times are these in which petals fall,
then float on the lake, droplets collect in their velvet;
empty lifeboats dance on the Mediterranean,
cup the sun and water admires its own reflection
a conversation about trees is the forester’s hymn
to his proverbial cathedral. The atheist that I am
starts praying to the crown shimmering with green
tips of fresh leaves bathing in blue with foamy clouds
it is almost a crime as I betray my fundamentally
anti-sentimental self, almost hug the tree’s trunk
for in doing so I maintain composure; but praying
the sun-sparkling dew drops split my lip like lightning
break my silence about –
so much wrongdoing
What is it about trees in our conflicted times?
Paperback
a golden shovel after Bashō
once a day I pull out the
thin paperback of a life
worn like a winter coat that’s
threadbare, but warm, given
to me on a chilly day; the
chair I sit in presses the small
of my back, forms a pool
of sunlight like that of
your hand. I seek shade
from the day’s glare under
a canopy of poems, the wickerwork
of word a wide-brim hat
Walking Tall
The old hiking boots
bog-forlorn, rain-drunk, sun-parched
my worn leather heart
Brittle leather boots
bog-waxed, rain-lathered, sun-dried
my old cobbled heart
Cobbled traveller’s boots
bog-trodden, rain-danced, sun-sung
my wise bouncing heart
© Karin Molde
Karin Molde feels at home in Ireland, Germany and South Africa. She has published in numerous magazines, both print and online, and in anthologies. Her chapbook “Self-Portrait with Sheep Skull” was published with Moonstone Press, 2023. Her debut collection will be out with Yaffle Press in spring 2027. https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/s/search?q=Karin%20Molde