New York City, May 14, 2015

★★★★★ A chatter of machinery, punctuated by a truck-horn blast, came in with the cool fresh air. A distinct stripe of tan separated the green on the Jersey bank from the water of the Hudson. The leaves on the shrubbery were shiny and the sun was almost hot where it landed directly. A girl scootered by wearing a paper crown over a pink helmet that had built-in kitten ears sticking out. Long rolling whitecaps moved up the river. Inland, on the Lincoln Center plaza, little ripples ran across the black pool. Shadows and reflections went back and forth across the ramp outside Alice Tully Hall. The concrete seats extending above the sidewalk were warm to rest on and the light was warm on the face. The bright towers of Broadway swelled and flexed in the windshield of a passing bus. A policeman rested his forearm on the sill of his open prowl-car window, a small cigar smoldering in his hand. A housefly kept vanishing whenever the flyswatter came to hand, then finally letting itself get caught by a straight downward smash as it hunkered over a crumb, a cartoon of a fly and a flyswatting.