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
It's knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried up on some line
That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my memory
It 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 And for hours you're just gentle on my mind
Though the wheat fields and the closed lines 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 a summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see you walking on the back roads by the rivers flowing gentle
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 pull 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 memory Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind
I dip my cup of soup back from a gurgling cauldron in some tin can I pretend to hold
you to my breast and find That you're waiting from the back roads by
the rivers flowing gentle on my mind I dip my cup of soup back from a gurgling
cauldron in some tin can I pretend to hold you to my breast and find That you're waiting