What Happened Won’t Happen Again

What fun to fit then to pretend!
This is science. This is magic.
This is metaphysics and math.

You scrutinize as carefully
As you can with available
Scholarship and technologies

What has been, what has been recalled
And recorded of what has been,
And then you apply discipline

To pretend. This will generate,
Smoothly, many explanations.
Done with enough skill and rigor,

It will produce the ambrosia
Of all invention—prediction.
It will feel real. It is not real.

It is the most wonderful game
In your human cosmos of games.
But pretend’s pretend. Then’s still then.