New York City, September 15, 2013

★★★★ The avenue shimmered with reflected brightness, and a breeze blew over it. A backhoe heaved steel plates around in the middle of the street, its piston flashing, uncovering a trench. Grains of light showed in the dark edges where the scoop had collaterally torn more asphalt. In the Sheep Meadow, when the balls bounced on the ground, they came up damp and grassy. So did the toddler. The afternoon would be for doing erratic scooter laps around Calder’s Le Guichet on the Lincoln Center plaza, never quite endangering it, and for digging in the dust in the cool artificial grove of sycamores and gravel.