Gentle On My Mind

It's knowin' 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 upon some line

That keeps you in the backroads 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 fit together walkin'.

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 backroads 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 junkyards and the highways come between us.

And some other woman 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 walkin' on the backroads

By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.

I dip my cup of soup, back from the gurgling cracklin' cauldron

In some train yard

My beard a roughning coal pile and a dirty hat

Pulled low across my face.

Through cupped hands 'round a tin can

I pretend I hold you to my breast and find

That you're waving from the backroads by the rivers of my memory

Ever smilin' ever gentle on my mind.