New York City, March 19, 2015

★★ The sun did what it could, with results more impressive to look at than to be out in. A song and a flutter of feathers stirred in a tubular crossbrace against the blinding sky. A shorn St. Bernard ambled up the block, presumably missing its fur. The humans were in hats and down, the still inescapable requirements in the indigestible cold. The birds sang on in the evening, as if they knew something, or were capable at least of believing it.