Before dawn breaks,
they are already walking
Following trails their grandmothers carved
Where the sky meets silence
11,000 feet above the ordinary
High in the Garhwal Himalayas, where the air thins and the sky deepens to indigo, blooms a flower the color of dawn. The Buransh—Rhododendron arboreum—has crowned these peaks for millennia, painting entire mountainsides crimson each spring.
Following trails their grandmothers carved
Eight thousand feet.
Crystalline streams.
Ancient bloom.
Distilled from petals
gathered at first light.
A single sip
carries millennia.
Best served chilled. A contemplation, not a refreshment.
Every bottle contains
a piece of the mountain.