Creativity Breadcrumb 24: Ferlinghetti’s Final Witching Hour

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There’s something about Fall. Maybe it’s the crumbling of leaves that resonates like restless souls, or the inevitable notion of impermanence: change made visible and inert leaves surrendering to the earth. What do autumn leaves remind you of? In Ferlinghetti’s poem, Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West, he thinks of faded playbill photos and the impending dusk. Enjoy!

Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

foto 11

Photography by Sofia Benitez

Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons
          walking their dogs
                      in Central Park West
    (or their cats on leashes—
       the cats themselves old highwire artists)
The ballerinas
                leap and pirouette
                           through Columbus Circle
         while winos on park benches
               (laid back like drunken Goudonovs)
            hear the taxis trumpet together
               like horsemen of the apocalypse
                               in the dusk of the gods
It is the final witching hour
                when swains are full of swan songs
    And all return through the dark dusk
                to their bright cells
                                  in glass highrises
      or sit down to oval cigarettes and cakes
                              in the Russian Tea Room
    or climb four flights to back rooms
                                 in Westside brownstones
               where faded playbill photos
                        fall peeling from their frames
                            like last year’s autumn leaves

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