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,
|
|
-----------------
|
Safer In The Forest / Love Song For Poor Michigan
|
La Dispute |