Strolling in Central Park, Auden in hand, he looks with astonishment at the buds about to break into bloom, and curses human memory, which was lovingly instructed by his old friend in that Southern City where spring must have already unfurled her flamenco skirt, on the etymology of the names of these trees, which he now struggles to name: star magnolia, crab apple, elm, white pine, hawthorn.

He sees stray daffodils (buttercups is his preferred terminology) and trees in bud on the sidewalks, walking towards his makeshift castle of books, under a lilac sunset. He make a mental note to himself must write a hymn to (and of) renewal tomorrow. And tomorrow comes, and is soon run over by the chores he has to do - wash clothes, procure food, pay bills, make long postponed phone calls, reducing weekday sleep deficit etc.

Spring sun streams into his room through the open window along with the white noise of a city. Is this the silence that Rilke advised the young poet to venture deep into? If it is, why does it make him melancholic? Why does it make him want to leave his room, and the two books that he had started to read the previous night, to wander the city streets? Why does it remind him of the low fever of unfulfilled desire that lurks inside human bodies? Why does it disrupt his - long amiss and unpracticed - sitting meditation with anxiety, portents of dissatisfaction, and memories of words said and heard in haste or distaste? Why does the beginning of this new season - greeted with unbridled enthusiasm by other creatures and life forms - seem to also pulse with suffering or dukkha?

So called, or once believed, or hoped for, a fragment from Shakespeare's Macbeth, which he was reading earlier in the night on the flight back, comes to his mouth:

"But here upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come."