It's knowing that your door is always open
cnd your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
cnd it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
cnd the ink stains that are 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 walking
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
cnd for hours you're just gentle on my mind
Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
cnd the junkyards and the highways come between us
cnd some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face
cnd the summer sun might burn me 'til 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 gurglin' cracklin' Calderon in some train yard
My beard, a roughening' coal pile
cnd a dirty hat pulled low across my face, through cupped hands
'Round the tin can, I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you're waiting from the back roads by the rivers of my memories
Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind