Bleepity-Bleep Leap (revisited)

A leap second. That's all I get.
Sort of like a saving account
that slings you an extra nickel once in awhile.

It just took me longer to gripe about it
than the second itself, didn't it?
But it couldn't have been much more
than that second, to make me wonder two things...

How will all those time-measuring devices
all over the world, feel about it?
And what would happen if we didn't bother?

Would the time-space continuum just shrug
and say, "That's okay. No big deal."
Or would I suddenly notice the very next day
that I'm missing every traffic light, by one miserable second?

And if one second suddenly became so miserable,
well then, could it grow to a minute?
or an hour? or a whole day? (The misery, I mean)

Would that second become infectious?
Would it then require some sort of innoculation?
Could it be split up and sub-divided, and sort
of shared throughout the rest of the year?

Could this be a parable of the second?
You know...we've all been given this one second,
this one little chunk of time,
and we just sort of - blink.
Is there a moral in that story?

Verily, there might be.
Will it become the longest day of my life?
Will I suddenly feel a whole second older?
Will the tide pause, and contemplate the shore?
Will some lonely little speck of starlight...

suddenly brighten up its little corner of the sky
in that one little second,
the one it took to finally put it over,
that one little light-second of travel
that brought it to my wondering eye?

And we could all look up and notice
and wave, and smile, and maybe even feel blessed
and know that the journey of a million light years

...starts with one second.