New York City, May 15, 2016

★★★ White cumulus, all plump curves, shone above the West Side. The four-year-old’s hoodie had been mislaid in the changing weather and all that could be found was a hand-me-down windbreaker. Outside was just mild enough for him to refuse to wear it. When the LIRR surfaced in Queens, the clouds had come together in almost unbroken gray and white, the gaps between them so narrow they could only be seen near overhead. Light fell here and there on the shadowed city. Young women in last night’s bare-legged outfits groaned about the evening just concluded. Sudden red — a blaze of azalea? — went by in someone’s front yard. At the end of lunch, a few umbrellas were out on the streets of Flushing. Jets came in low, round and heavy, booming under the now-solid ceiling. Up on the train platform it was so cold the four-year-old gave up and accepted the windbreaker. A man and two children scurried along the eastbound side, cringing in shorts and sweatshirts. Sun fell briefly onto the return train. More sun came down on the West 60s, but for the moment only there. By late afternoon the clouds had broken again, though, and the wind was shaking the bright leaves of the shrubbery in the rooftop planters across the avenue. A strange formless cloud hovered in the west, a dark but somehow luminous blur. The blur then revealed itself to be rain, glittering and blowing in the open window through the clear returning light. It passed and the west was fully clear, with the tiny silent speck of an airplane crossing it.