It's 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 knowin' I'm not shacked 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 mem'ry
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

It's not clinging to the rocks
And I'd be planted on their columns, now that binds me
Or somethin' that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walking

It's just knowin' 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 mem'ry
And for hours, you're just gentle on my mind

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone

I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face
And a 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 dipped my cup of soap
Back from a gurglin', cracklin' caltron in some train yard
My beard, a roughen coal pile
And a dirty hat pulled down across my face

Through cupped hands around a tin can
I pretend I hold you to my breast and find
That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind