Our far-flung Western net-desk night editor Tom Sexton, once the Poet Laureate of Alaska and always a distinguished alumnus of Lowell High School, sent this new poem inspired by a work of art he bought from Bill Giavis, a legend at the Brush Gallery in Market Mills downtown.—PM

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Monoprint of the Concord River Mills

for Bill Giavis

Far from the scene hanging on my wall,

a few battered old brick mills remain.

I’ve seen trees growing out of their

sagging roofs as if strong roots can

keep their walls from falling floor by

floor into the river below, but in the print

every brick, every wall, glows as if

it’s made of light.  Is that bridge piling

rising from the river granite or a pillar of salt?

—Tom Sexton (c) 2014