North of Boston

I have spent the last week in it, the real, the vibrant fall, ; and wonder now however could I turn and come back to this city cell; I never would have either but the country seems in mortal danger from urbanity.

I fancy me as Beowulf on bicycle charging the speculator Grindels of the city.

I left a Tuesday afternoon at four, biked up Mass. Ave. through Arlington; in Lexington, at the Battle Green, I picked up two-twenty-five to Bedford Center, then Carlisle, Westford and beneath four-ninety-five to one-nineteen where the maples sing their bloody song at sundown:

Groton, six:fifteen.

Here I change against the evening chill and buy some apples. I choose McCouns; for I can't understand the Mcintosh (what a nation of sycophants— we can't get rid of an apple without character, let alone a president.)

After a sevenr:thirty coffee stop in Townsend its up thirteen toward Milford in New Hampshire, where, near nine by the look of the moon, I roll out my bag on new fallen leaves and let the frost settle around me for the night.

Wednesday I'm up at the sun rising on my right through Mt. Vernon, New Boston, Weare, Henniker, Bradford, Sutton, New London, Springfield, Enfield and across the hill to Etna with time to rest before the sun is sucked behind Vermont and the color from the trees.

I am a hundred-thirty miles and seventeen or fewer hours North of Boston, and not a trouble in my muscles nor the hills but the people who think a ride through such exuberance a task.

You must ignore them when they say, "You can't!" They drown in their own fear that they will not endure a judgment day which they . aren't even sure is coming, when all they need is the common sense to bathe in the common sensuality of all outdoors.

When the maple's color has been blown out to the New Hampshire floor and begun to bleach in the November rain the oaks and beeches will remain a delight in the subtle eye, and if you wear your anti-hunter dayglows you can enjoy the color in your ears of crunching autumn under foot, until first snow between Thanksgiving and December.

To see the thrill of gaudy fall and rank it best because our city eyes are blind to differences that make the next day as lovely as the last, is to miss the trees when they whistle their first nakedness into the winter wind, and send a shivver up that can't be heard in any other time along the year.

I panic when I think the day may come when neither mine nor my survivors' sensibility will notice that October blood needs grey November for its nourishment.

Can anyone aware of life taste autumn without contemplating death or think that we will not be noted when we disappear?

If I am a leaf upon a bough may the wind be strong that takes me down that I may have a long and giddy dance before I touch the ground.