Can a colon follow dependent clause?

Two fires burning opposite each other: one that is kindled to acknowledge god’s grandeur and the other one that reminds us how insignificant everything else in life is; a subtle reminder of the dichotomy of life.

Here, can a dependent clause “Two fires burning opposite each other” be followed by a colon? If not, what punctuation mark should I use? Please correct.

Solution 1:

Unless it's used in the context of a list, where your phrase is just one of the list items, or it's used for stylistic effect (neither of which seems obvious here), you shouldn't be using just a dependant clause in the first place.

Regardless of punctuation or anything that follows it, providing only a dependent clause is ungrammatical. There is no punctuation that can save it.

But you could reverse the sentence structure you have so that it's actually an independent clause followed by a colon, making it grammatical:

A subtle reminder of the dichotomy of life is two fires burning opposite each other: one that is kindled to acknowledge God’s grandeur and the other to remind us how insignificant everything else in life is.

Note that I also made a few minor edits to address some unrelated issues.