New York City, December 3, 2015

★★★ A sheet of violet clouds was slipping away as the daylight, unimpeded at last, came through from the east. The direct sun was hardly over the line from dazzling to blinding. Long shadows of people pointed toward the northeast corner of Union Square, and shadows of pigeons flew among them. Old oily puddles on the edge of the parking lot had been emulsified into murky translucency. Tiny sparse clouds were followed by thick, gray-tinged ones — so densely gathered that the sun was reduced to intermittent brief appearances. It was cold enough that the four-year-old grew irate about how long he was waiting for the third grade to emerge onto the sidewalk. The clouds kept moving fast, acquiring new warm tones as the sun prepared its exit from the afternoon. They shrank again and the west was nearly clear; the last ones, low in the sky, flared to pink or deepened to purple.