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 shackled by forgotten words 
and bonds and the ink stains that have dried upon some 
line,
That keeps you in the back roads 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 bind 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 back roads by the rivers of 

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines and the 
junkyards and the highways come between us, 
And some other woman's 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 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 dip my cup of soup back from the gurglin', crackling 
cauldron in some train yard; 
My beard a roughn'ning 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 wavin' from the back roads by the rivers of 
my memory ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind.