Safer in the Forest/Love Song for Poor Michigan

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 rear-view 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 till the end
 Let tongues confess the plague of joblessness a temporary illness
 Let us wave their flag from there to here and 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 roll, just roll, 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