It's knowin' that your door is always open

And you path is free to walk

That makes me tend to keep my sleeping bag rolled up

And stashed behind your couch



It's knowin' I'm not shackled

By forgotten words and bonds

And the heat stains that have dried up on some lovin'

That keeps you in the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

It keeps you ever gentle on my mind



It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy

Planted on their columns mellowed by me

Or something that somebody said

Because they thought we'd fit together walking

It's just knowing that the world will not be cursin'

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 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

Till' the join might stain my face

And the summer sun might burn me 'till I'm blind

But not to where I cannot see you

Walking in the back roads

By the rivers flowing gently on my mind



I dip my cup of soup from a gurgling,

cracking cauldron in some train yard

I'm barely runnin' cold how

Have a dirty hat pulled low across my face

Who cupped hands around the tin cans

I pretend to hold you to my breast and find

That you're wavin' from the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

Ever smiling never changes on my mind