Who

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?

China is made of earth, of sun-dried mud.

In this part of China everything is made from the earth:
the houses, the walls around cities, and villages,
the tombs scattered over the countryside.

I am the man
Whose name is mud
But what’s in a name
To shame one who knows
Mud does not stain
Clay he’s made of
Dust Adam became—
The dust he was—

1
There are no dry bones
here in this valley. The skull
of my father grins
at the Mississippi moon
from the bottom
of the Tallahatchie,
the bones of my father

’Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883,
That a monster whale came to Dundee,
Resolved for a few days to sport and play,
And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay.

So the monster whale did sport and play
Among the innocent little fishes in the beautiful Tay,
Until he was seen by some men one day,

Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750—1848)
astronomer, sister of William; and others. A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman

When to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear;
But when she doth of mourning speak,
Ev’n with her sighs the strings do break.

And as her lute doth live or die,

(After Kipling) When the traveller in the pasture meets the he-bull in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside;
But the milch cow, thus accosted, pins the traveller to the rail --
For the female of the species is deadlier than the male.

(¡Pura vida! —Costa Rican phrase for "O.K." or "Great!") Such heat! It brings the brain back to its basic blank.
Small, recurrent events become the daily news—