New York City, April 24, 2014

★★★ The wind and sun carried on enthusiastically and at cross purposes. A diffuse but still coherent contrail laid a thick seam along the middle of the sky. Yellow tulips were up and open inside the fence on Sherman Square. A flattened gallon jug went banging end over end along the roadway. Down in the subway, the sun through the grate picked out every detail, each wrinkle or cigarette butt, in the garbage-cistern between the rails. On the way aboveground, in Brooklyn, petals blew down the stairway. They were falling like a pink-tinted snow flurry outside the museum. A red-tailed hawk banked and circled across the street, its tail flashing rust. The wind was roaring in the ears. By the return to Manhattan, the yellow tulips had shut down for the evening.