ORNITHOLOGY

M. G. Stephens considers our physical world and its health as portrayed by our own relationship to birds and their well-being. Here the birds are bellwethers of the Earth's and our own human survival. But mostly these poems are about that most human of emotions-love-in all its permutations. This poet is not afraid to be lyrical and to love; in fact, he sees the lyrical impulse as poetry's most natural expression, just as love is the most creative and expressive part of our very humanness. Nowhere is this writer more in love with the music of our natural world than when he is observing the birds which inhabit and share that space with us.