Two Rivers, One Race
On Monday, the Whanganui River
gained legal personhood.
On Tuesday it didn’t notice.
It was busy being blood.
Te Awa Tupua
from mountain to sea
one long vein of tuna and lamprey
dragging its dark gospel to the coast
koura in its knuckles
inanga in its teeth.
The whio walked its rapids
the way only the mad and the holy
can walk
into death.
Kererū crashed through rata
a heart crashing through a chest.
Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au.
I am the river, the river is me.
On Wednesday the Clyde
hauled its own body through Glasgow
shopping trolleys in its throat
sewage in its lungs after rain
fishless for longer than a century
a vein that forgot it was a vein.
On Thursday a salmon pushed through
the first in a hundred and fifty years
the way a word returns to a mouth
that forgot it had a tongue.
On Friday a heron stood in the Clyde
stilted, like a question:
what are you racing for?
On Saturday the Clyde opened its mouth
for the Games
and three thousand athletes
ran along its banks
without looking down.
And on the seventh day
the Whanganui rested
from all the wrestling it had done
and looked at its own body
the tuna, the whio, the bats in the rata,
440,000 new plants
stitched along its banked wounds
and pronounced it good.
The Clyde cannot yet rest.
Ask the otter.
Ask the cormorant.
Ask the salmon,
its silver body fighting the weir.
Ask the single porpoise
that swam into the city
like a dare.
About this poem
Two Rivers, One Race by Selina Tusitala Marsh is included in an anthology of poems themed on the Right of Rivers commissioned by the SPL for the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games.
Notes: Two Rivers, One Race
Context
Glasgow hosts the Commonwealth Games for the second time, 23 July – 2 August 2026 (it first hosted in 2014). This poem places two rivers — the Whanganui (Te Awa Tupua) and the Clyde — alongside each other.
Legal History
In March 2017, the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act recognised the Whanganui River as a legal person — the first river in the world to receive this status — following over 160 years of Whanganui Iwi advocacy. Two guardians (Te Pou Tupua) act on the river’s behalf: one appointed by the Crown, one by the iwi. The 440,000 native plants refer to the Mouri Tūroa restoration project (2022–2025), led by Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui Trust in collaboration with the Department of Conservation.
The Clyde was essentially fishless from the mid-1800s due to industrial pollution. Atlantic salmon returned in 1983 after nearly 150 years of absence. Otters, herons, cormorants, kingfishers, sea trout, and at least one porpoise have since returned. The Clyde River Foundation calls it “a recovering river.”
Glossary
Te Awa Tupua — the Whanganui River recognised as an indivisible living whole, from mountain to sea
Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au — I am the river, the river is me (Whanganui Iwi proverb)
tuna — freshwater eel
koura — freshwater crayfish
inanga — whitebait
whio — blue duck, endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, walks fast-flowing rapids
kererū — New Zealand wood pigeon
rata — northern rata tree
