In the Flight of Stars, Dorothy Roberts's seventh book of poetry and her first in more than a decade, is -- in her own words -- " a collection of latter-life poems," the mature work of a firm intelligence. No sentimentalist, Roberts unflinchingly confronts the polarities of birth and death, decay and renewal, the gradual passage of light, the forces of dissolution, the patterns and requirements of nature. Growing old, she observes the pleasures of age and the interwoven pattern of loss. Like the best of her earlier work, In the Flight of Stars demonstrates Roberts's ease with language, her preference for meter and movement, her interest in subtle variations of sound and her ability to combine idea and metaphor. The result is a signifcant collection of verse which is formal without being austere; muscular yet singularly delicate and sensuous.