Hegel’s Globe

For all his theatrics, Hegel never
acted. How do I know? Though his world stage
has divas and a cosmic director
vying for the hollow cheers of the age;
though he peoples scenes with extras galore
whose raison d'etre is but to advance
the drama's avatars to crisis' door,
echoing Hamlet's ill-starred Rosencrantz;
and though he seems to know the fickle minds
of humankind that lionize, in verse,
the vices for which, in prose, they consign
the all-too-human to history's hearse:
Who, from zeit to zeit, sets his stage anew?
Hegel built a Globe, but forgot the crew.