LET THE RIVER RUN ITS COURSE.
Artist Simon Gunning speaks

At first the Mississippi seemed
stubborn and closed,
not much at all-wide, flat, and pale.
But I hadn't looked closely enough.

The real river was industrial,
hostile, and dangerous.
In the sun rippling the sullen water,
in the smells of coal tar,
wet rope, and diesel,
I sensed its energy, its life force.

I had stopped in New Orleans
on my way from Australia
to art school in England,
but I never got there.
Louisiana wound its tendrils into me
and wouldn't let me go.

I have painted the river in all its weathers,
as it flows from north to south.
Beyond the skeletal ruins of a dock
looms a monolithic freighter,
half lost in haze. Below the placid surface
at the river's mouth, roiling
currents surge into the Gulf Stream
at the start of their global journey.