Gentle On My Mind

Lyrics

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 boons  
And the ink stains  
That have dried upon some line  
That keeps you in the back roads  
By the rivers of my memory  
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 something that somebody said  
Because they thought we fit together walkin'  
It's just knowing 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 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 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  
Walking 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 to hold you to my breast and find  
That you're waving from the back roads  
By the rivers of my memory  
Ever you're just gentle on my mind