The Age of Reason

GOETHE

Mercy, Goethe, its sort of

unfortunate

you lived when you did.

The Age of Reason they called it

and people felt really smart

– some of them –

because they knew a few things

and thought they knew lots

Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson

thought they were pretty smart too

- smarter than God -

free to edit their own Bibles

tell others what was true

and what not

and so on, Johannn,

tough to be alive

at such a time

and be so smart

and know so little

(but you didn’t know how little)

now we know enough

to know how little we know

and envy your ignorance

except when we walk past

your statue in Chicago and see

you up there clad in

nothing but wisdom

and sat on by pigeons