It's knowin' that your door is always open And your path is free to walk That makes me tend to keep my sleeping bag rolled up And stashed behind your couch
It's knowin' 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 And keeps you ever gentle on my mind
It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy Planted on their columns now that binds me Or something that somebody said Because they thought we fit together walking It's just knowing that the world will not be cursin' 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 clothes lines And the junk yards and the highways come between us And 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 And the summer sun might burn me 'till I'm blind But not to where I cannot see you Walking in the back roads By the rivers flowing gently on my mind
I dip my cup of soup back from a gurgling, crackling cauldron in some train yard My beard a roughening coal pile And a dirty hat pulled low across my face With cupped hands around a tine 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 Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind