Aberdeen, Maryland, To New York City, August 19, 2012

★ The dim gray light of limbo. From morning through midday, nothing changed or brightened under the leaves. A hummingbird, darker green against the green, worked the trumpet vine outside the back window. A hummingbird moth did the same in miniature, on miniature blossoms, at the side window. Up out of the mossy woods and onto the hard-paved highways, what had been cool and tranquil became chilly and oppressive: featureless stratus all the way to the horizon, as the Turnpike traffic thickened and slowed to a crawl. Maybe the sky shaded a little darker in the rear-view mirror. Only on the approach to the city did some texture appear in the clouds. At the moment of arrival, the upper floors of nearby towers were briefly flooded in orange-red alpenglow. Before the car seats could be unstrapped, it had already faded.