I Want To Wander Poem by David Welch

I was driving down a dirt road
in New York's backcountry, upstate,
when I came upon a dead-end
near a small dairy farm, sedate.
The farmer must have though me strange,
and inquired if I was lost,
I said, "No, I'm just wandering, "
and with a small wave, I was off.
My wife doesn't understand it,
makes no damn sense to souls like her,
but it truly makes me happy
to just go out and wander.

My dad says it's a waste of gas,
extra miles on the tires,
I'm hastening my own car's death,
corroding the breaks and wires.
my brother thinks it's so boring,
that there's nothing out there to do,
but that's how I feel at parties,
he cannot get my point-of-view.
Everyone worries that I'll break down,
and not be able to get back,
I say that I like to wander,
but they just can't understand that.

Can't understand that every scene
is a painting of earth and stone,
and each new place a masterwork
that before I'd never known:
a red barn weather by the wind,
an old rock wall shrouded by trees,
ravines carved out by fast torrents,
abandoned car from the fifties,
a larch clad in autumn yellow,
spike-horn from his browsing disturbed,
dirt roads unchanged from ancient days,
all are there when I wander..

The world's too big to see it all,
but that doesn't mean I won't try,
I've got this one existence to
drink the beauty in with my eyes.
It may not make sense to most folk,
but then again, I never did,
I always craved experience,
even since I was a small kid.
What's waiting 'round the next corner?
Where are the vistas I've not found?
I'm a man who likes to wander,
excuse me, I must go now…