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 shacked by forgotten words and bons
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.

It's not clinging to the rocks
And I'd be planted on their columns now that binds 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 mem'ry
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 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 dipped my cup of soap back from a gurgling
Crackling caldron in some train yard
My beard a roughen coal pile and a dirty hat
That pulled low across my face.

Through cupped hands around a tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind...