Right off the bat: thank you for a true poem. Sound and Sense of a personal experience that transcends and becomes universal. May I add a “workday” not… St. Distaff’s Day when “women’s work: such as loading the distaff with unspun wool that feeds unspun wool to the spinning wheel. Ploughmen, not yet back to work, were expected to play practical jokes –– setting the wool on fire? Hah! In expectation, a bucket of water ready to douse the fire and the fellow. Simplier times, eh? Your poem brought fresh thoughts of our friend, Bill Stone, who passed away August 22, just short of his 80th birthday. He was a wonderful painter and a poet to boot. One Christmas in London, this haiku sent home:

bells fill the air
with changing ring
the faithful called

Peace at home and in the world,

Neal Whitman