Born on the mountain, running from the mountain, beckoned eastwards by the warming rays of dawn.
The Rosanna is a thread of night-cold water – one of many that tumble from the Tyrolean Alps and eventually feed the Danube. I was in the Alps earlier this week, and listened to this river. Its chatter was relentless, punctured in moments by the sweet songs of siskins and serins.
A river is never alone. Some companions dive into it.
Others grow beside it – bistort furnishes the banks with a pink glow.
The Alps have bled rivers ever since they were forced skywards by a grinding collision between the African and European continental plates, but ice ages and landslips have rearranged their ancient watersheds. The Rosanna is old to us, but young to a mountain.
Yet the mountains, too, have a past. Some scientists believe that the Alps rivaled the Himalayas in height when they were young. What we now have is a later page of their story, of what happened when rock fought time and ice.
But in the here and now, the river keeps running, and siskins sing over the mountains’ feet.
A Walk with Wildlife 
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