Jericho

Jericho

What good would a heaven be without you?
Who cares about eternity if we never meet?
What good would a heaven be without you?
I am Jericho, be my horn.
I am Jericho, be my horn.

All these dreams are nothing without you.
They can never happen if we never meet.
All these dreams are nothing without you.
I am Jericho, be my horn.
I am Jericho, be my horn.

Somewhere out there there's an angel waiting.
Let me fly into the sun, how willingly I'd fall.
Somewhere out there there's an angel waiting.
I am Jericho, be my horn.
I am Jericho, be my horn.


As someone who studied the reading and writing of poetry a lot in college, I frequently find myself reading my own work at a much deeper level than others might. The truth is, as one of my professors once said, my poetry is deceptively simple. Even this poem, with its frequent repetition (worth noting in and of itself), contains a significant amount of weight in its few words.

Though a strange endeavor, I want to approach this poem the way another reader might. As though the author is "dead," as it were. This, for the uninitiated, is the literary world's way of saying we as readers can never truly know the author's intended meaning without sitting down with the author or having copious notes or other documentation laying it out for us. 

First, reading the poem, I am not certain if it is a prayer or a plea. There is clearly a romantic tone, as the poet uses language suggesting a worldly relationship. However, the use of Christian imagery and references make it unclear if the author is making the plea to a woman, a specifically Christian woman, or to the Christian God. Is the poet asking purely for the love of a woman, or permission to love something beyond the realms of the emotional. The lack of clarity may suggest that the voice in the poem cannot, or does not, differentiate between the two. Caritas may be the kind of love the voice is seeking. It is reminiscent of John Donne, who treated material love as spiritually transcendent and spiritual love as materially fulfilling. 

The diction in the first line also begs the question of prayer or plea. Heaven is not capitalized, which suggests the author doesn't hold the typical Christian respect for the term, and as such, isn't referred to specifically as the Christian heaven. He states, "a heaven," which suggest that the eternity in question could belong to any faith, though that seems unlikely given the other specific imagery in the poem. Though to be fair, it could be considered Jewish imagery, but my exposure to Judaism isn't a strong and as a reader, it doesn't awaken those ties within me. 

It seems likely that this poet then, is either an atheist or agnostic with a strong background in Christianity. This likelihood makes the sense of prayer extremely interesting, as if the speaker in the poem were begging for an opportunity, not only for an end to the haunting loneliness of the poem, but   for a reason to believe in something larger. It's also extremely possible that, assuming as we should that the diction was very specifically chosen and intended, the poet just enjoys playing with tropes, or is truly so romantic as to make the desired love into an almost religious experience.

This brings me to what I consider the strongest and most interesting line in the poem, "I am Jericho, be my horn." It is clearly the most important to the poet as well, as it makes up six of the fifteen lines of the poem. Without refreshing my knowledge of the story of the fall of Jericho, I am reminded of a story of a city with strong walls that held against any assailant. One individual is given a magic horn that, when blown, topples those walls, turning them to dust in an instant. This image suggests that the poet, or the character he is writing as, identifies himself as having high walls, or strong defensive traits that somehow help to keep him from something he wants. Perhaps these defenses are self defeating, as he openly pleads for someone else to "be my horn." In other words, to miraculously break through those defenses and, we can assume, bring the kind of love he desires in.

I'm only going to touch on the second stanza, as it is the weakest of the three. It serves mostly to reinforce the idea that the poet has romantic goals that have yet to be fulfilled, and the figure to take part in fulfilling them has yet to be defined. It is interesting to note that the context of the prevailing line, while still maintaining the imagery explained in the previous paragraph, manages to take on new colors with each situation. This stanza is the earthly one, with the kinds of earthly hopes and dreams that are instilled within most of us from an early age.

The final stanza takes both the religious tone of the first and the earthly tone of the second and combines them. The opening line transforms this unknown woman into an angel, a common enough theme. Given the poet's suggested lack of belief in such things, it's an interesting choice, however. The next line makes that choice even more intriguing. 

The author writes, "Let me fly into the sun." This is a bit of a turn from the Christian imagery, invoking as it does the Grecian myth of Icarus, but not entirely. We've already been lead to imagine an angel, and Icarus' character is a human who flew on feathered wings. He flew too high and the sun melted the wax that gave him the power of flight. The poet clearly knows this, as the next clause states, "how willingly I'd fall." Yet this suggests the fall of angels, the romantic notion of falling in love, as well as Icarus' ill-fated descent from the sky after reaching too far and too high. In five words, (counting "I would," as two), the poet has recognized his humanity, a sense of the divine in himself, a willing departure from the divine, a desire to fall in love, and the possible folly of all his desires. 

The poem finishes once again with what may be best called its refrain. "I am Jericho, by my horn. / I am Jericho, be my horn." It asks, the sound of the word horn echoing into the silence of its passing, for no more or less than it asked at the beginning. The poet is flawed, is human, is hopeful, is both touched and separate by the spiritual or divine, has guarded all that he is behind the high walls of an impregnable city, so high and thick that perhaps he has trapped himself within them and sends out his voice in supplication to something or someone to set him free.

As it is said, that which seems simple, rarely is.