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 knowin' 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 somethin' that somebody said because they thought we fit together walking

It's just knowin' 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

And for hours you're just gentle on my mind

Though the wheet fields and the clothes lines

And the junk yards and the highways come between us

And some other woman cryin' 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 back roads

By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dipped my cup of soap back from a gurglin' cracklin' caltron in some train yard

My beard a roughen coal pile and a dirty hat pulled down across my face

Through cupped hands around a tin can I pretend I 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