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 my
memory and for hours you're just gentle on my mind.
Though the wheat fields and the clotheslines 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 the 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 a 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 to hold you
to my breast and find,
That you're wavin' from the back roads by the rivers
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