Xiu's Song

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When I was 18 and a freshman at Seattle Pacific University, one of the few things I indulged in was a subscription to the newspaper. I really couldn't afford to spend the money I made washing dishes on weekends at Gwinn Commons, but I was hooked on Spiderman.

Every morning I had to get a three caption fix of the life of Peter Parker and his adventures. It wasn't the superhero stuff that captured my imagination, rather the moody guy in the Navy pea coat with hang ups and a secret life nobody would ever believe. I had a Navy pea coat and was moody and my secret life included fantasies about going to Israel, but that was so far out that I had to keep it to myself like Peter and his Spidey alter ego.

Xiu at January Winds has been pining of late for Leroy, literally counting the days until he returns from Nepal. She wondered aloud if her readers are tiring of her blog. I don't know about the others, but for me every post she writes is another episode in an unfolding saga, the Adventures of Xiu; like those 3 captions of Spiderman every morning by my door in Ashton Hall.

But sometimes it's more than just a diversion. Sometimes she comes up with a real gem, a diamond in prose. Like this one:

"What a random thing I did that I made myself happy coincidentally." (Xiu)

It struck a chord with me, like a melody you hear on the radio and replay under your breath all day, but I didn't know why.

And then it hit me. It's poetry. Long after I dropped out at SPU to come to Israel, I returned to Academia, Jewish Studies at a branch of Bar Ilan University. I was a student of the Bible and learned the ancient poetry of Israel, the psalms. The art in verse in the Bible doesn't rhyme and isn't measured; it is a rhythm of thought, repetition of ideas wrapped like the petals of a flower around its heart.

"The Lord will protect you from all evil,
He will keep your soul.
The Lord will guard your going and coming,
from now and until forever more."
(Psalms 121:7-8)

Hebrew poetry retains its beauty even when translated because it wasn't created to please the ear, rather to speak to the spirit. Xiu's verse is poetry in the Hebrew tradition. Balanced and layered, a moment of magic unfolds like the petals of a rose.

Xiu's poem stirred up in me memories of something else from those days at Seattle Pacific. That year something random happened coincidentally over Christmas break. I went back to Seattle, so Mary flew up from Portland and we had a day that I remember from beginning to end, a day that comes to mind when I think of happiness.

Xiu captured it in simplicity, beautifully.

What a random thing did, that made me happy coincidentally.