Pioneers Without Frontiers Poem by David Welch

When I was a kid on the bus,
I looked at all that surrounded us,
out the window I always gazed
seeing old fields, half-trees, half-hay,
beyond them rose a forest wall,
maples and pines, stately and tall,
past that rose a line of low hills,
I could never really get my fill.
My mind imagined trekking there,
discover mysteries if I dare,
what awaited in that country
always had an allure to me.
But as I grew it became clear,
for centuries folks had been here,
the forest and hills were settled long,
to other people they belonged.
‘No Trespassing' posted everywhere,
made my young mind feel despair,
I thought I was a pioneer,
but my small world had no frontiers.

Of course then I became a teen,
travelled often with a ski team,
to the Catskills, Adirondacks,
upstate New York, it does not lack
wilderness to tempt outdoors souls,
whether summer warm or winter cold
it seemed an endless, vast expanse,
evergreens that held me entranced,
I trampled mountains, ancient stone,
walked America's rocky bones,
and though it seemed ever empty,
things started to appear to me
that though it was a wild place,
humans had long known this space.
I saw names carved on mountain's high,
chiseled in eighteen sixty-five!
I trampled down old logging roads
that my great grandpa must've known,
though I felt like a pioneer,
this no longer was a frontier.

As an adult it just got worst,
though I traveled and saw the world,
the wild west where cowboys play,
Scottish Highland's misty days,
northern taiga filled with big bears,
but human sign was everywhere.
No hidden lands, no unknown stretch,
no place for people who feel best
away from laws, rules, and permits,
there's nowhere left for us hermits.
Some say we'll find it in the stars,
but the cost of that can stop the heart,
you can't just walk to Mars freely,
and if you could, you couldn't breathe.
With nowhere left to roam on Earth,
yet still burned by the wandering urge,
it's hard for us poor pioneers
stuck on a world with no frontiers.