William Stafford (1914–1993)
Terms of Surrender
We hide in the dead grass.
Heat makes the rocks tremble.
Before night rescues us we have
accepted the terms: crawled,
lied, cheated—lived.
We take what the world gives.
We bow our heads like flowers
and think of the ways we came.
Before sleep each night we put
our mouths against a clod
and breathe our share of common air—
The truest way there is to say God's name.
William Stafford (1914–1993) was a prolific and celebrated American poet who wrote in a simple and unadorned style. He established his habit of rising early every morning to write during the 1940s when he lived with other conscientious objectors in work camps in Arkansas and California. After he was released, he taught creative writing for many years at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. James Finn Cotter wrote that Stafford's poems "reach out to the reader with a hand of trust and tenderness, time and again, in images that make small gestures large-hearted and full of importance."
Amy Frykholm: amy@journeywithjesus.net
