A reader wrote in response:
Ode to Angels, Dancing on Pinheads
9/16/2018
A question oft-asked, but slightly in jest
posed angels on pin-heads, and here is the test:
How many can dance, how many per pin?
Most folks shake their heads, dismiss it and grin.
My mind wayward wanders - far, far, from home
and that sort of puzzle, like dog with a bone
Won't leave it to rest, won't leave it alone
So here's how my mind works with much " to and fro'n"....
How many angels are dancing you ask
Well it depends on the rules of the task
Is it polka or pow wow - they both take more room
Are haloes tucked inward, are roses in bloom?
A sleek silhouette is more compact by far
But if wings are unfurled there's no room at the bar
"What? Angel's drinking? Irreverent answer!"
Well, then you can't be that much of a dancer
Grassy Butte polka, a West River wedding
a "chivaree", card party, or winter-night's sledding
Might not be much booze, but never not any
A wee dram of "snake bite", and sometime plus plenty
Anyway, beverages, we'll take them for granted
The task must count angels. But also why can't it
depend on the type of the dance that they do?
Is it jitter-bug, jive, or the old boog-a-loo?
When twin fiddles start up on "Cotton-Eyed Joe"
A dance floor in Texas is plumb-filled you know
"Beer barrel Polka" , by old German musicians
Packs wedding dance floors, no admonitions
We've danced on tables of bars, dives and breweries
We've shed coats and checked hats, and taken off "jewelries"
We've hiked up our boot straps, and tucked in our pants
We've done everything possible gettin' ready to dance
But back to the counting, back to the answers
I still need more info 'fore tallying dancers
Is it grass dance or hoop dance, if there is a pow wow
And where does the drum go? How many and how now
do we count the drummers, the back ups and smudgers
Do they get their own pins? And how about judgers?
For jingle dress dancers we sure have to plan
More room when the pretty girls all wave a fan
In addition to dance style, consider location
No line dancers, break dancers, in part of the nation
where I've danced, and, yes, even had me a beer once
So counting is prejudiced by my experience
A very few bikers, but surely not skinheads
Angelic dancers. How many pinheads?
I'll count waltzers and shufflers and old 'Slide and gliders"
I'll count stag lines and bashful old bachelor "hiders"
I'll count angels aplenty, those angels galore
I'll total the quantity out on the floor
But, one thing perplexes me, one thing remains
I ask you quite honestly, racking my brains
If angels are like we, except for some sinning
Inevitably, then one will show up a 'grinning
He'll have his knees locked, his arms all akimbo
And suggest with a wry smile we all do the limbo
So, angels on pin heads I'll count, take a toll
But what in God's name, are the specs on the pole?
......................
Fair warning -
If I can get "terpsichorean" in rhyme and meter, there may be another verse - ha!
*******************************
My response:
While an angel may dwell on terpsichorean,
A Bakken shalennial will buy a Delorean.
Buy a Delorean? You say! And again I digress!
Back to the angels and the pinheads they bless.
