In Keeping Watch at the End of the World, Harry Thurston explores the ways in which poetry stands sentinel at the edge-places where known and unknown meet. Whether that frontier lies between land and sea, present and past, health and illness, or youth and aging, Thurston holds that the poet's duty is to survey the horizon and "see things before they take shape," chronicling occurrences both acute and remote. A poet-naturalist in the tradition of Thoreau, Thurston reminds us of the importance of being fully present in the midst of our own brief lives, of shaping what we see into poetry's "steeped words-dark, light, and sweetened gifts.".