The late-day walk is sun-scorched, quick-timed. The cars don’t see you coming. In the lengthening days of new spring, it is still raw and cold, so I don’t linger on the path. The point is decompression. The jingle-jangle of the subway, the pressure of the deadline — these will slip away in the balm of foot fall. Or at least that is the hope.

But afternoon light is desolate. It lacks the comfort of the morning. I find no explanation for this in science, only in poetry:

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Miss Dickinson to the rescue. She understands.