Natural History and Fairy Tales

What can be seen. What can’t be.
What can be accounted for.
What needs to stay fantasy.

These are the rules of those games,
Sometimes played on the same field
Or in the same library,

But never at once, except
Sunk in dreams and reveries.
Fans of both of them exist,

And even coexist, like
Fans of peace and politics,
Mutually suspiciously,

Whether in a single brain
Or in mind’s communities.
What can be seen. What can’t be.

Name and describe everything
Found in those categories
Separately. Debate later

Whether one category
Earns human priority.
What can’t be seen. What can be.

Bleak heaven, we’re all the same,
Or nearly. Games are the game.
When we leave, fields go to seed.