Gentle On My Mind

Lyrics

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 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 clingin' 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 movin' 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 junkyards 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 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 flowin' gentle on my mind  
  
I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron  
In some train yard  
My beard a roughening 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 waitin' from the back roads  
By the rivers of my memory  
Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind