Gentle On My Mind

It's knowin' that your door is always open and your path is free to walk



That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' 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 cursin' or forgivin'



When I walk along some railroad track and find



That 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 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 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 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 mem'ry



Ever smilin' ever gentle on my mind