New York City, January 22, 2015

★★★ Now the seasonable half-day’s allotment of pleasantness came in reverse: a dark morning’s clouds thinned and the light slowly intensified, till the afternoon sky was clear blue and the scaffold shadows sliced up the sidewalk. Up in the treetops, the sun was precise on the fine new buds; down by the river, it spread a vague, spectral shimmer over the water. An arc of dry pigeon droppings traced the arc of the awning around the back corner of a Trump building. Pink-rimmed purple clouds rode above the descending sun, which was round and just bright enough to leave a field of polka dots on the retinas after tempting the eye to follow it.