Preston's award-winning poet Margaret Gibson headlines when the opening presentation of the 25th season of the Arts Café Mystic poetry and music series takes place Friday at the Mystic Museum of Art.

Gibson's latest book, "Not Hearing the Wood Thrush," is just out from LSU Press and is a thoughtful, heart-caressing meditation on life, marriage and loss through the prism of her husband David's struggle with Alzheimer's. The collection is also very much a companion piece to "Broken Cup," a volume of poems inspired by David's original diagnosis and their subsequent journey through the early stages of the disease. Gibson is a writer whose glorious imagery and transcendent observations about nature, love, energy and our ultimate connections are, simply, life-changing.

Host and artistic director Christie Williams has put together another empathetic program, too. The evening's musical act is The Sea The Sea and the Opening Voice poet is Edwina Trentham.

Margaret Gibson, Arts Café Mystic, 7 p.m. Friday, Mystic Museum of Art, 9 Water St., $5, $5 students; (860) 912-2444, theartscafemystic.org.