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 knowing i'm not shackled by forgotten words and bonds and the ink stains that have dried up on 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 binds me or something that somebody said because they thought we'd fit together walking i'ts just knowing that the world will not be cursing or forgiving when i walk along some railroad track and find that you move on the back roads by the rivers of my memory and, for hours, you're just gentle on my mind the wheat fields and the clothes line and the junk yards 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 the summer sun burns me till i'm blind, but not to where i cannot see you moving on the back roads flowing gentle on my mind on my mind well, i dip my cup of soup back from gurgling, cracling, cauldron in a train yard my beard roughening coal pile and a dirty hat pulled low across my face with cupped hands 'round a tin can i pretend i hold you to my breast and find that you're moving on the back roads by the rivers of my memory and you're flowing ever gentle on my mind on my mind on my mind
