It's knowin' that your door is always open
And you 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 heat stains that have dried up on some
lovin'
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
mellowed by me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we'd 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
Till' the join 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 from a gurgling,
cracking cauldron in
some train yard
I'm barely runnin' cold how
Have a dirty hat pulled low across my
face
Who cupped hands around the tin cans
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
never changes on my mind
