Pittsburgh’s river triad quickly sparked fascination after my move here several months ago. Intrigued by the coal barges and long trains that traveled along the Monongahela, I needed to learn more about the rivers and their relationship to the city. In January, the rivers froze over and created a memorable icy-blue scene foreign to me as a California native. The most beautiful Pittsburgh sunset I’ve seen came while I was sitting on the steps of the Point State Park fountain, where the Monongahela and Allegheny meet. What I love most about the rivers is how they flow through the city in spite of it. These rivers are a force of nature and should be treated as such.
I partnered with Ash Andrews, who works to get people out on the rivers as CEO and president of Venture Outdoors. I asked Andrews to write a poem about the rivers to which I would match video footage.
Romance Under the Rivers
Who will know I’ve navigated these rivers?
who will feel my wake on their skin
taste my wake on their tongue
speak my wake on their breath
Will my wake feel like rage to the red tailed hawk gliding above
Taste like fear to the catfish and trout mingling on the riverbed below
Sound like spite to the river otter rolling and diving without care
And what of my ripping through still water
bow pressing through headwaters
forcing backfill against gravity
What of that strike, that splitting of peace
tailwaters turned transverse in disarray
What of my wake then?
Orion pulling out from celestial belt loops
Milky Way spilling onto the Allegheny River
Night river paddle through the eternals
The ecology of the three rivers forever changed by my childish tributaries and selfish deltas
Or shall I instead stay still?
My silent spring silent
moored up at the dock
with a tight midshipman’s hitch
d-ring to the sea-wall
ebb and flowing in place
Wind and current straining
only as far as chained radius allows
Will they only remember my wake for the spring they saw?
but what of my watershed
What of my pilings and what of my barge, my gangplank, my stern
What of my frivolous fireflies, my ravenous damselflies, my couple of dobsonflies on the side
My steady dryad’s saddle and occasional turkey tail, my hopeful trillium and persistent knotweed
What of those?
Will they remember my wild carrot as poison hemlock, my North Star as Venus,
Cooper’s hawk for turkey vulture, eclipse as new moon?
Will the trout remember the feel of my wake on their soft dorsal fin?
Land acknowledgment: Pittsburgh and the three rivers, the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny, are located on the ancestral lands of the Adena, Hopewell, Monongahela, Delaware, Shawnee and Osage Peoples.
Anastasia Busby is a photojournalist with PublicSource who can be reached at anastasia@publicsource.org and on Instagram @abuzzbee_photography.
