Gentle On My Mind

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 on the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry



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 because that somebody said because they thought we fit together walking



And it's knowin' that the world will not be cursing or forgiving



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's 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 gurgling crackling 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 to 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