Sextilis to Sept — a Leap of Faith

I quit the days that chill us

As we March toward Sextilis

Romulus intercalated the year

Adding dual moons, factitious

Sex became Octigenti

and Sept, Novem a'plenty

The eighth Moon, august and regal

By the Julian modum viventi

Still, the Equinox vernal

Drifted steadily toward eternal

Delaying the Resurrection

For each revolution, diurnal

Aloysius Lilius

A mathematician imperious

For forty years removed the Leap

Till Easter fell, again, religious

Gregory XIII, too

In 1582

Declared the way we count our months

In the Janus to Decem queue

No one knows what happened that year

From October fifth to fifteenth, in arrears

Persons born — then — were simply unborn

In a ten-day Limbo of contrivance engineered

I spurn and leap, not, the spurious day

Every four years that comes our way

In lieu I take annual six-hour respite

Each Sextilis, led calendrically astray