You might think a total eclipse of the sun would have no color. The word eclipse comes from ancient Greek ekleipsis, “a forsaking, quitting, abandonment.” The sun quits us, we are forsaken by light. Yet people who experience total eclipse are moved to such strong descriptions of its vacancy and void that this itself begins to take on color. What after all
is a color? Something not no color. Can you make a double negative of light? Would that
be like waking from a dream in the wrong direction and finding yourself on the back side
of your own mind? There is a moment of reversal within totality.
Totality: The Color of Eclipse
Anne Carson
