By Morris Dean
We wanted to follow up today with the husband interviewed last week (in "Anniversary in sestina"). That interview mentioned that the couple's wedding anniversary follows a pattern in the day of the week on which it recurs year after year. We realized that the same applies to all other dates: they'll recur in certain future years on the same day of the week. By what pattern will they recur? [Our questions are in italics, but the interviewee starts talking first.]
A date's day of week follows a pattern—
Monday this year, say, then Tuesday the next.
What explains that bump in the calendar?
A year has fifty-two weeks plus a day
(Plus two days, of course, if it's a leap year).
So when does a date's day of week recur?
The year that a date's day of week recurs
Is reckoned by the extra-day patterns
That slot the date's fall each following year—
Taking next April 29, when next
Will that date happen to fall on Monday?
In six years, as shown by the calendar.
Please explain. (Good to check the calendar.)
A day requires seven bumps to recur.
One bump occurs next year, to a Tuesday,
Then one the next, to Wednesday. The pattern
Then bumps by two because '16 comes next,
And '16, as you know, is a leap year.
That's four, plus one bump in each of three years
'17 to '19, by calendar—
Seven bumps, six years. How many to the next
Monday, April 29? It recurs
Again in but five years. Here's the pattern:
'20, a leap year, gives us two bump days;
Then we are given three single bump days
In the '21 to '23 years;
So leap year '24 fills the pattern—
Five years past '19, by the calendar.
And after that? When does Monday recur?
Once again, the way the years fall, the next—
Seven bumps to 4-29 Monday
Will take but six years this time to recur:
2030 will be the next year!
Good! You're getting to know the calendar.
But that's not all there is to the pattern:
'41; the day (check the calendar*)
Recurs in eleven. That's the pattern!
In today's sestina, I found it necessary for the first time to violate a rule of sestina-writing that I followed in earlier attempts: I allowed myself to use some of the end-words more than once in some of the stanzas. I might have been able to avoid this by "writing around" the extra occurrences of the words, but I'm sure the result would have sounded contrived and been harder to follow. I could, alternatively, have tried to substitute different end-words for "next," "day," and "year," but that too could have been damaging. Begging your indulgence, I'm going to let the violation stand.
[Follow-up on fourteen calendars to cover all years]
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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean
* One bump from 2030 to 2031, two more to 2032 (a leap year), one more in each of the three years, 2033, 2034, and 2035, for a total of six bumps. Then, in going from 3035 to 3036 (another leap year), we take two more bumps, for a total eight, landing on Tuesday, April 29 in 2036; we have to keep going to land on another Monday, April 29. So, one bump from 2036 to 2037, one more to 2038, one more to 2039, two more to leap year 2040, then one more for a total of fourteen bumps altogether (a multiple of seven) to get us to Monday, April 29...in the year 2041. Fourteen bumps in eleven years because of the three intervening leap years.
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