whats the message in the poem "enter a dark stranger" and y is the message so important? whoe the stranger?

Question

ENTER DARK STRANGER
by William Trowbridge


In Shane, when Jack Palance first appears,
a stray cur takes one look and slinks away
on tiptoes, able, we understand, to recognize
something truly dark. So it seems
when we appear, crunching through the woods.
A robin cocks her head, then hops off,
ready to fly like hell and leave us the worm.
A chipmunk, peering out from his hole
beneath a maple root, crash dives
when he hears our step. The alarm spreads in a skittering
of squirrels, finches, millipedes. Imagine
a snail picking up the hems of his shell
and hauling *** for cover. He's studied carnivores,
seen the menu, noticed the escargots.

But forget Palance, who would have murdered Alabama
just for fun. Think of Karloff's monster,
full of lonely love but too hideous
to bear; or Kong, bereft with Fay Wray
shrieking in his hand: the flies circle our heads
like angry biplanes, and the ants hoist pitchforks
to march on our ankles as we watch the burgher's daughter
bob downstream in a ring of daisies.

Answer 1

The Jack Palance character was unfamiliar, scary (to the dog), dangerous, and definitely evil. (Killing "just for fun.")

But being ONE of those things doesn't necessary mean someone/something is ALL of those things.

A human in the forest: scary, often dangerous to wildlife. Evil? Not necessarily.

Karloff's monster: an outsider, scary. But not evil. (I don't know if he was actually dangerous.)

King Kong: same thing. Also a "stranger," scary, dangerous. But not evil.

Not all sacry strangers are dangerous. And even if they're dangerous, they're not necessarily evil.

And the corollary (flip side): Some tiny, vulnerable creatures CAN be dangerous or harmful. Flies, ants... bother the heck out of humans, even though we could squash them, uh, like a bug.

If there's a social message, I guess it would be that, just because someone or something looks different enough to scare you, tit doesn't mean they're bad. And just because something looks little and harmless, it doesn't mean it's not going to hurt you.