Jerusalem Sonnets (27)
Three dark buds for the Trinity
On one twig I found in the lining of my coat
Forgotten since I broke them from the tree
That grows opposite the RSA building
At the top of Vulcan Lane — there I would lay down my parka
On the grass and meditate, cross-legged; there was a girl
Who sat beside me there;
She would hold a blue flower at the centre of the bullring
While the twigs on the tree became black
And then slowly green again — she was young — if I had said,
‘Have my coat; have my money’ —
She would have gone away; but because I gave her nothing
She came again and again to share that nothing
Like a bird that nest in the open hand.
Copyright Credit: James K. Baxter, "Jerusalem Sonnets (27)" from Selected Poems. Copyright © 2010 by The James K. Baxter Trust. Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press, Ltd.
Source: Collected Poems (Oxford University Press, Ltd., 1979)