THIS is the land the sunset washes,
~Emily Dickinson
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery!
Night after night her purple traffic
Strews the landing with opal bales;
Merchantmen poise upon horizons,
Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
This immediately strikes me as a rare gem of a Dickinson poem. It is thoroughly lovely and in-the-moment, with nary a mention of buzzing flies or someone’s funeral (though I suppose the “western mystery,” the going-down-place of the sun, could be connected to death–but you know what, I’m going to stick with the prettiness this time and not read too much into it).
The phrase “the land the sunset washes” is gorgeously descriptive, and I love how light becomes water in this poem–it “washes” across the landscape. If I’m reading this right, the “Yellow Sea” is also the light in its entirety. This whole poem is one tiny, perfect, jewel-like description of a single moment–but also the eternal recurrence, “night after night,” of sunset.
There is something wonderfully profligate (to use the word in a Dickinson kind of way) about how, despite the very short length of this poem, she strews it lavishly with lush descriptions that are at once immediately evocative and yet at time a bit elusive. “Where,” “whither,” “mystery,” “vanish”–while the sensory details are precise and shimmering, painting a vivid picture, and at the same time the thrust of the poem is toward mystery, the unknown–magic.
One of the things about Dickinson’s poetry that never ceases to delight and astonish me is the way she packs so much meaning into so few words. How is this tiny poem about sunset in all its glorious specificity, and the vast mystery of, well, pretty much everything? How does she do it?? There is magic at work here, clearly.
I love, love, love that she ends the poem with “fairy sails.” The prosaic ships of merchantmen are transformed in the golden light to fae craft that work their own magic, dipping and vanishing.
As I read and re-read the poem, it strikes me that Dickinson is both describing an almost alchemical process, and also performing word-alchemy herself–light to water, water to light. This idea has set roots in my brain, and I’m wondering now–what would happen in my own writing if, the next time I described some elemental force (like air) I described it in terms of a completely different elemental force (like fire). What would happen to my language? How much richer would it grow?
So, here’s a bonus prompt, if you’ve made it this far through my raptures of delight: describe an element using the descriptive language suited to a different element. What happens if you write about earth as if it is water, fire as if it is air?
The Emily Project 