A is A: Monism Refuted

This from The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham, Swallow Press, 1971, p. 118, epigram #47:

This Monist who reduced the swarm
Of being to a single form,
Emptying the universe for fun,
Required two A's to think them one.

Notes

1. The title is Cunningham's own.

2. Poetic license extends to use-mention confusion.

3. It was over at Patrick Kurp's place that I first made the acquaintance of Mr. Cunningham.

4. Note the poetically pleasing addition by the author of his name to the title of his collection.

5. My copy of Cunningham's collection, a well-made hard bound, acquired via Amazon, is a Mount Mary College (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) library discard.  There is no evidence that it is a second copy.  How naïve of me to think that libraries ought to be permanent repositories of high culture.  But the folly of reliably liberal librarians redounds to the benefit of the bookman.

6. Philosophically, the trick is to uphold the supreme truth that all is indeed One while accommodating the manifest and non-illusory plurality of things and persons.