A Walk Through Harlem @ 8AM

Drizzling.  Empty.  Maybe the silence is the most shocking right now.  Light drops of rain on the ground.  You hear the sloshing of tires on wet ground.  Barely any cars out.  Slowly make a velcro un-doing sound as they cautiously drive.  Birds tweet overhead.  Loudly, not annoying in the least.  With all the trees and people silence, Harlem is pretty peaceful in the AM.  A couple stands on the corner, their voices a hurried whisper swallowed by the rain and velcro of the car tires.  A truck at a stoplight.  A base, growly kind of sound.  As the light turns green growly truck becomes more high pitch and it speeds away.  Cleaner truck.  Ironic something to clean creates so much noise pollution.  Loud engine, loud brush scrubbing up rain.  Slowly interrupts every other sound as it goes down the street.  Loud tweets.  I look to my left - small birds found cover from rain under Scientology awning.  Sing to each other very loudly.  Or perhaps amplified by the space they invaded.  Surprised me.  On 125th street all sounds are drowned out by early morning addicts yelling to each other as they stagger down the streets.