It's knowing that your door is always open And your path is free to walkThat makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag Rolled up and stashed behind your couchIt's knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bondsAnd the ink stains that are dried up on some lineThat keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my memoryIt keeps you ever gentle on my mind It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy plantedon their columns now that bind me Or something that somebody said because theythought we fit together walking It's just knowing that the world will notbe cursing or forgiving When I walk along some railroad track andfind That you're moving on the back roads by therivers of my memory And for hours you're just gentle on my mindThough the wheat fields and the closed lines and the junkyards and the highways come betweenus And some other woman's crying to her mothercause she turned and I was gone I still might run in silence, tears of joymight stain my face And a summer sun might burn me till I'm blindBut not to where I cannot see you walking on the back roads by the rivers flowing gentleon my mind I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglingcrackling cauldron in some train yard My beard a roughening coal pile and a dirtyhat pull low across my face Through cupped hands round the tin can Ipretend to hold you to my breast and find That you're waiting from the back roads bythe rivers of my memory Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mindI dip my cup of soup back from a gurgling cauldron in some tin can I pretend to holdyou to my breast and find That you're waiting from the back roads bythe rivers flowing gentle on my mind I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglingcauldron in some tin can I pretend to hold you to my breast and find That you're waiting