Song of What Isn’t
Patrick Lewis

How long I have spent in wordless thought
in search of words for what is not
I care not to know and so know not. 
I think each unthawed thought of the past
has come to be lost
in the winter of this:
that truth loses being
in want of expression.
If every silence that I have measured
in thoughts of which or even whether
words can capture thought or not
were gathered together, and set to speak,
then the whole society of solitudes
would still have nothing to say.
I wish I could dream away the day
in listening to the drifting snow,
and singing wordless what I cannot know.

Patrick is a third-year math major at Pomona who should really be doing homework instead of writing poems, but can't help himself sometimes!