It's just knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk,
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch.
And it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line,
That keeps you in the back roads
By the rivers of my memory,
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.
It's not clinging to the rocks
And ivy planted on their columns now that bind me,
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walkin'.
It's just knowing that the world
Will not be cursing or forgiving
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're moving on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory and for hours
You're just gentle on my mind.
Though the wheat fields and the clotheslines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us,
And some other woman's crying to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone.
I still might run in silence, tears of joy
Might stain my face and the summer sun
Might burn me till I'm blind,
But not to where I cannot see you
Walkin' on the back roads, by the rivers
Flowing gentle on my mind.
I dip my cup of soup back from a the
Gurglin', crackling cauldron in some train yard;
My beard a roughn'ning coal pile and a dirty hat
Pulled low across my face;
Through cupped hands 'round a tin can,
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find,
That you're wavin' from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory and for hours
You're just gentle on my mind...