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 stacked behind your couch And it's knowing I'm not shackled By forgotten words and bonds And the week's paints that are dried upon some line 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 now that binds me Or something that somebody said Because they thought we'd fit together walking 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 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 crying to her mother Cuz 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 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 gentle on my mind