New York City, December 13, 2015

★ The sky wasn’t not blue, though there were other colors smeared into it for sure. It was mild enough to open the windows to vent the smell of bacon and to get only one complaint from the children about the draft. Again in the forecourt the starlings were singing their bright invaders’ song, as they feasted on the little fruits in a near-leafless tree. Up on the fountain terrace, framed by shrubs with holiday lights in them, roses were stretching up and blooming. The haze sparkled like a glaze of ice ought to have. People were out in short sleeves. Damp spots had soaked through the summer-checked woven shirt of a man riding slowly on a Citi Bike. The sky lost still more blueness, but clear syrupy rays still came through it up the avenue, from the low white field of glare corresponding to the sun, powdery as Turkish delight.