New York City, September 1, 2016

★ The morning was gray and wet, sometimes getting wetter. Water beaded on the steel bowl that the hard boiled eggs had been cooled in, even after the ice water had been dumped out. The clouds thinned deceptively and then a new downpour came by midafternoon. It was only a little too hot for the rain jacket, hot enough to leave the front open and let the shirt get damp. The rain stayed for a while then stopped, and the light improved for a while before getting ugly again. Stirring phenomena seemed to be developing in the western distance but down in the streets all was yellowish and upsetting. Brightly painted toenails were still out in the damp and the gloom, but some other signal had reached the man in the bus shelter, in jeans and a thick sweater, and the bagpiper nearby in his tweedy cap and pants with the luster of corduroy. The walk home was a race to get up out of the shadows before the light bloomed, as it certainly would, and did: A pink plume stood up against churning darker clouds, and near scarlet light flared from a vent pipe.