New York City, November 13, 2016

★★★★ A contrail broad and dense enough to block the sun shone like a razor clam shell. The bill of a passing starling was pale between its flying dark body and the blue above. Branches and their shadows tossed outside the church, till a bright spot of the wavering light found and held the face and wings of upraised arm of the angel at the center of the dark window behind the altar. In the afternoon, as the five-year-old kicked a soccer ball around the forecourt, leaves scraped along the pavement, south to north and north to south, and helicopter and siren sounds carried from the distance. Down on Columbus Circle, the police behind their barricades were variously dressed for everything from a passing chill to a hard deep freeze.