Leo Dangel, "Pa"

Listen. This sounds like Jim Heynen, one of Sioux County's finest writers. The  two of them had to be friends, and they were, two boys Old McDonald farms, an era of cows and pigs and chickens, eggs that had to be gathered and barns that had to be scooped. 

Listen to this guy, Leo Dangel*. Here's a poem of his, just "Pa."

When we got home, there was our old man
hanging by his hands from the windmill vane,
forty feet off the ground, his pants down,
inside out, caught on his shoes--he never wore
underwear in summer--shirt tail flapping,
hair flying. 

Don't ask what makes it poetry, just listen. Leo Dangel is spinning a yarn made sad by the old man's horror--there he is, buck naked, upside down, hanging from the windmill. Don't laugh. Yet.

My brother grabbed a board.
We lugged it up the windmill and ran it out
like a diving board under the old man's feet
and wedged our end below a cross bar. 

Once upon a time farming, by necessity, created thousands of homepun engineers. How many kids today could jerry-rig a way to get the old man down? 

              "I just climbed up to oil a squeak,
reached out to push the vane around, slipped, damn
puff of wind. I swung right out."

If you haven't yet, it's now safe to chuckle.

We felt strange helping him down.
In our whole lives, we never really held him before,
and now with his pants tangled around his feet 
and him talking faster, getting hoarser
all the way down, explaining, explaining.

Human of the old man to fill up the air with explanations.  And the boys felt strange?--good night, what about him, born along like a sack of grain, the whole pink package of privates out there midday.

On solid ground, he quivered, pulling up his pants.
I said, "Good thing we came when we did."

The kid had to say something, right? Look, there's no damage here if you don't count ego. But you can't quite laugh either, the boys couldn't, I mean. At this point, even the reader has got to sort of grin-and-bear it, too. What happened to Pa isn't pretty. 

His eyes burned from way back. His hands
were like little black claws. He spit Copenhagen
and words almost together.

Poor guy. Poor, poor guy.

                                       "Could have hung on
a long time  yet. Anyway, you should have been home
half an hour ago."

If you ask me, up until that last line, it's all story. But when the old man lights into the boys the way he does, while still zipping his trow, this wonderful little tale pivots into poetry. All of a sudden it's ours because with that flung-out scolding, Pa isn't just pa--he's every last farmer, trying his everlovin' best to create order out of the chaos, make sense of the lunacy.

And he's even more, don't you think? "Anyway, you should have been home/half an hour ago" he says, a perfect delight of a line. His bibs still coming up, Pa, as all of us would, is doing what he can to snatch back some scrap of dignity.

I didn't grow up on a farm, never climbed a windmill, never lost my trousers; but that doesn't mean I've never been Pa.
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*Leo Dangel was born and reared around Freeman, SD. For years, he taught literature and writing at Southwest State University, Marshall, MN. "Pa" is from his collection titled Home from the Field.