The blessing is with you now

"The blessing is with you now"

was written on the rectangle

of flimsy yellow paper

that the kid handed me

through the window of my car

after I gave him a crisp bill

while waiting at the stoplight

I took it to mean I would sell my project

at the meeting I was on my way to

as if my twenty dollar offering

on a street corner in Beverly Hills

to three black kids with cardboard signs

about their dad being out of work

was enough to buy prosperity

because surely to be blessed

means to be successful

But at the meeting they weren't buying

and in the wake of the ashes of my effort

my mind goes back to that

coupon for a blessing

and I realized I was trying to cash in

that blessing, as if it were redeemable

like a check I could deposit

at a bank during business hours

or maybe I could use it like food stamps

and exchange it for some processed cheese

as if I could turn a verb into a noun

How often have I tried to buy my happiness

not understanding that a blessing

isn't a bottle of spring water

to be grasped and gulped

but the spring itself