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 bind me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walking.
It's just knowin' that the world will not be cursin' or forgiving
When I walk along some railroad track and find
You're movin' on the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
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 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...