THE EARLY SUN banked down off a window to raise a golden flare from one and only one of the cars in the shade of the west side of the avenue. The temperature rocketed out of overnight autumn into summer again. Dogwood berries shone red in the treetop. The light was glaring but honeyed, coming through a next-to-invisible film of high white cloud. The wind tossed a wall of greenery in the Park but couldn’t find its way down the path. Insect chatter came and went over the steady chatter of humans on picnic blankets. A rim of soft pink, higher in the west, surrounded the sky. Swallows or swifts flitted and cut across the blue dome at the top. Bumblebees swarmed blooming boneset and made the lurid tips of goldenrod sway. A blue foam dagger lay forgotten in high grass. Gingko fruits had fallen whole and green in the shelter of the trees, bothering no one. The breeze could not be coaxed indoors.
