New York City, March 9, 2014

★★★★ An uptilted oval of cloud balanced itself low down in an egg-blue sky. More white puffs moved in and out again, the leisurely theater of the heavens. Sharp light and a brisk breeze came up the avenue together. Pale pigeons nibbled at birdseed on the sidewalk, and a passing boy kicked at the pigeons. The day wasn’t warm, but it was bright and fine enough to be out in, in then now-displaced afternoon. Now the wind somehow did the trick where it was headed down Broadway but up Amsterdam. It chilled the forehead and stiffened the muscles tightening the eyes against the glare. More pigeons, possibly some of the same ones, perched on a well-spattered ledge below the blankly vigilant gazes of three fake owls.