New York City, June 4, 2015

★★★ The garbage smell stayed after the garbage truck had passed. Two starlings grabbed unidentified crud in their yellow bills. The clouds were solid but not grimly so; it would have been cool without a screaming three-year-old in one’s arms. A brighter spell came and went. A burning odor, like charcoal starter, hung over Lafayette Street in late afternoon. For one inviting, decisive moment, it looked as if there were sun on the steps up out of the Columbus Circle station, but whatever had created that impression was gone in the time it took to get through the turnstile. Sunset toward the west was no more than a few golden thin spots in the gray, but the reflective glass of the next apartment tower showed compensatory pinks blooming in the unseen east.