Leap Second
Jan 1 2009


Already it’s 2009,
and we have yet to decide
what to call this decade that falls
between the 90’s
and the teens.

There was a leap second this year
— the earth
moving that much slower
as it grows inexorably older,
just like the rest of us.
No wonder 2008
seemed to take
forever.

But still
there are killing fields in the Middle East,
and we carry-on
as the planet over-heats,
and 3 billion hapless souls
live on less than a dollar-a-day,
and have never made
a phone call.
While the superstitious claim the only God,
and the enlightenment
can barely pierce the dark,
and even the courage of atheists
is lost,
preferring to be called agnostic.

And as the impoverished
shrug-off hard times,
the rich panic,
and the rest of us re-assess
the values, the blessings
we were working too hard
to give much thought.

It is hard to imagine
this beginning
in the dark eternity of winter.
But the calendar has decreed it so,
the last numeral
conspicuously
clicking over.
Which makes the year feel like a bad used car
with the odometer turned back —
we could be partying like it’s 1999,
and no one would ever notice.