New York City, May 20, 2014

★★★★ Any plausible reason for walking would do. Certainly taking the 1 train would have been senseless. People were out in the sun wearing earbuds, talking into dangling wires, tethered to routine or duty as lightly as possible. A pair of pristine landscaping trucks stood beside Dante Park, delivering new plantings, spring sprouted by subcontractor. A gangling cop in dark short sleeves crossed the street with an oddly deferential jaywalker’s jog; CNN interviewed average people on the street about something about their iPhones. The green retinal glow from the daylight lingered all the way down the steps, through the mezzanine, down the second set of steps, and into the waiting subway car. Crumbs of cloud were scattered above downtown. The retinal afterglow floated up the office stairway. It seemed worthwhile to walk the dozen or so blocks to the used bookstore, for a volume listed online as in stock, and it was almost even worthwhile to walk back empty-handed when the book couldn’t be found. Whenever the air threatened to get hot, breeze and shade intervened, and whenever it threatened to get chilly, the sun came on again. Only the clouded and colorless evening was a disappointment, a slacking off after such scrupulousness.