Pegnitz the river
My experience of river sources to date has been having to seek them out, eventually finding small bubbling surges of water on boggy hillsides, or tiny streams through stones or a sheep field or not seen but heard beneath a drain on a city’s high point. Striding up the hill here in the hot morning I’m full of anticipation then as there are signs to the quelle. It must be spectacular. But oh. Maybe it was. Today I find a large concrete lined pond, and it’s almost empty.
A passing local says it’s had no water for 2 years. Not enough rain she says. So I sit on the concrete with the summer leaves rustling and vast lorries thundering behind on the highway. An hour later , I have some momentous recordings.
Yes, of course there is some water, just not gushing. And things are living in it. And the dried concrete basin provides a resonant chamber for the bass swell of the lorries that roar by. I have the start of the piece.
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