No Leap Year in 2009, but what have we missed?

A holiday so unexpected, it's hard to resist.

This February there's not a day to waste,

so cinch up your buckle and try to make haste.

No 29th of the second month of the year

although that two-faced Janus swears it will appear.

What does all this say about March, April, or May?

Just what can we expect from the other holidays?

Will the parade for Naomh Pádraig cease to exist?

Will we deflower Easter? Will Memorial Day persist?

There's so very much to think upon and ponder.

Don't you just hate it when these special days wander?

Why do we have to live on somebody else's time?

Shouldn't what's ours be truly yours and mine?

The wily winter days are clearly quite short.

Enough! Where's the full measure of our day in quart?

As the Dutchman flies across the seas of time,

so we, too, seize our hours in pantomime.

Let our silent prayers to the sun sound unrehearsed

while we all share in the same opportune verse.

These quarter-days offer more interesting years.

The mind boggles as the universe spins in arrears.

To leap beyond the breathing hours, that is how this year commences.

To take away the joy of feeling, that is merely mending fences.

Carol Anderson

Not the 29th of February 2009

(and I'll stake my literary reputation on that!)