New York City, May 23, 2013

★★ Clouds were moving and kept on moving, bunching up and loosening and bunching up again. The river went dark and choppy, then turned smoother and silvery as the rain blew in. The clouds still had white in them, even as the drops fell. After the rain — or between the rains, as it turned out — the river was green and mottled with shadows, as sun came through. Then it was deeper green with whitecaps coming across the current. Indoors was humid, but the breeze outside had become fresh. A male kestrel fluttered up and perched on a balcony across the way. By the time the camera could be persuaded to zoom past the windowpane, the little falcon was gone from the viewfinder in the dimming light. Rain came blasting in again, falling in what actually did look like sheets: solid white objects plunging past, flashing in peripheral vision. Again it subsided; people spilled out onto Broadway, warily, to take advantage of the end of the rain, or was it just a pause in the rain? The latter, and it didn’t hold quite long enough even to push a stroller up to the Fairway and back.