Safer In The Forest / Love Song For Poor Michigan

(album: Wildlife - 2011)

I've been watching a slow thaw come around.
I've been waiting in the cold and hazy blue.
I've been driving alone out to the edge of town.
I've been thinking too much of you.

Last snowfall left splinters and some winters never end;
neither wane nor wear.
And sunshine is like lovers and some summers just pretend;
only warm the air.
It's that I'm tired of the feeling here.
It's too near to death, it's too jobless year-round.
It's not the weather in the city or the highway moan.
Not the streets or the buildings, neither wooden nor stone.
Every reason to leave this place behind, why I should be alone,
Are made of flesh and bone.

I've been thinking of exile.
I've been thinking hit the highway and head up North.
I've been thinking cross the bridge and don't turn back.
The only warmth is a warmth alone.

He packed up, took 75 northbound to a brand new life and
Waved goodbye to the world in the rearview mirror.
Saw it clearer in hindsight,
The shape of its skyline traced in a flame from the windows ablaze,
The people restless and the streetlights glowing like
Many beacons in the sea or like a lantern lit
For the ones still lost out in the dead of the night.
Like lightning striking darkness once, no thunder, no pain.

Have you ever watched a slow thaw come around?
Have you waited in the cold and hazy blue?
There's an airport there out near the edge of town.
I've been thinking too much of you.

Settled in that still forest like another phantom
or another shadow cast by choice.
A noiseless chorus blows through the leaves and trees
and brings a peace at last
From a place where the song kept changing
just when he was starting to get it.

When he was starting to trust there'd be a day
he'd find a way to keep the rust at-bay,
There'd be a day he'd find a hum to help him muffle the past.
Like thunder underwater, he hears it fading
and feels no pain at all.

To a Boring, Desperate City,
It's been weeks since I've been around you.
Has the fear begun to fade away like sunlight
when it sinks into the lake?
Are they now building up, or breaking down
and boarding up the fronts?
Has the whole town been foreclosed now?
And what happened to those youthful dreams
sunk deep in the river weak?
Or got tangled up in weeds or else they're stumbling drunk
on Wealthy Street? Or making plans to leave?
I need to leave. I can't marry this place.
I won't bury the past. I just need a change of scenery.
I will hold these old streets sweetly in my head like her.
And I will praise their bravery always and again.
Let tongues confess the plague of joblessness
a temporary illness.
Let us wave their flag from there to here then over
and again and let us hope for better things
though we may not ever get them.

We will rise again from ashes one day.
Until then, just roll me away
I need to leave but swear I will carry you in me until the end.

So, Tuebor, my home!

Your desperate friend,