WOLF'S TREES

If trees fall in a wood and no one hears them,
Do they exist except as a page of lines
That words of rapture or grief are written on?
They are lines too while alive, pointing away
From the primer of damped air and leafmold
That underlie, or would if certain of them
Were not melon or maize, solferino or smoke,
Colors into which a sunset will collapse
On a high branch of broken promises.

Paul Muldoon's official website

J. D. McClatchy at Poetry Foundation

J. D. McClatchy at Academy of American Poets