New York City, July 4, 2016

★★★ Someone in fact had put out or kept out a pair of American flags, to flop back and forth now and again in the sunlit front of a shadowy balcony. The four-year-old stood with his wiffle bat in the shade in the home-plate corner of the playground, and explained to the glare-stricken pitcher that the shade was what he enjoyed about the game. When the one-on-one ballgame, or the ball-chasing part of the ballgame, palled, there was the climber and a fine noon breeze blowing through it. In the early afternoon, there was a cookout going on, with grills and a helium tank, inside a garage doorway. A dog lowered its head to snap at dry leaves blowing along the sidewalk. The Sheep Meadow was full but not overcrowded; to the north, lines stretched out the restroom doors and the cafe. The open space on the way into and out of the Park was hot with a dusty manure smell. The afternoon grayed and the air through the windows lost its early freshness, till it was time to shut it out and chase its lingering effects with the air conditioner. Eventually there was rain, the day’s solution to the problem it had just created.