New York City, February 17, 2015

★★★ To squinting lensless eyes it looked as if the snow had ended overnight. But fine flakes were still there, and then bigger picturesque ones, falling out of a brightening and even part-blue sky. A new clean white cap of snow covered the mailbox and the bus-stop sign; new soft black slush lay in the streets. At the recessional, cold air poured into the back of the church and people put on their coats before the cross had gone by. The hood of the old parka felt as if it was coming unzipped, but it was the zipper coming unseamed. The snow kept falling, flashing in full sunlight, into the middle of the day. Blobs of ice clung to the moonroof of the new-style taxi. A thundery rumble in the night announced not more precipitation but the Year of the Sheep, two days early, via fireworks on the Hudson. The wind had stilled so that the later volleys illuminated the ghosts of the earlier ones, smoky columns and blooms still hanging where their sparks had once flared.