The past few mornings, haze has hung over the river and muted everything. Today I was out early enough that it was still clear. A building's shadow darkened half the pilings, while the other half, being dry -- it was low tide -- were silver-gray. Small whitecaps disrupted the dark blue surface of the water. A gleaming, and I mean gleaming, white yacht sped downriver kicking up a bubbly white wake, which did not at all perturb the red tug shoving a black barge in the same direction. The trees on the hillside across the river are still dark green, but the ones along the waterfront walkway there are starting the slow fade to brown. And through the pale blue of the sky came my favorite helicopter, a gorgeous golden yellow one with a red undercarriage.

And what trash floated upriver on the tide? Balls. Tennis balls, both white and neon green; softballs, big and small; pink rubber balls, blue handballs, a soccer ball, some little blue-and-red striped thing. It was as though a ballfield-discard trashcan had been emptied into the river. Which could be what happened, for all I know.