Blazing in Gold and Quenching in Purple

My title is actually from a poem by Emily Dickinson which I found online quite by accident. In the poem, Emily Dickinson describes the sun as blazing in gold and quenching (setting) in the purple horizon. She goes on to talk about how the sun leaps like leopards through the sky but then lays her spotted face to die on the horizon, evoking the image of the sun as a performer with her last line “And the Juggler of Day is gone.”

My first photograph below was taken about 20 minutes after the sun had set in the West. Even the purple of dusk was disappearing into the ink of night with only Venus visible as a cold stabbing shard of light. Stuck with only my phone, I captured a grainy image of the wheel and the planet. Something about the circular notion of life comes to mind. Planets go around, the wheel goes around.

Ain Dubai- the world’s largest Ferris Wheel in construction. Shot just after sunset, Venus is visible as a bright white spot at the top left of the image above the wheel

Another circle and more purple but this time a more cheery image with a bright flower and a pretty bee dusted with flecks of pollen. More cycles, more circles, both gold and purple.

A honey bee sits on a bright purple and gold flower. Shot in Ladakh last year

Here’s Emily Dickinson’s poem if you’d like to read it in full

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter’s Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone.

*edited- corrected the planet

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