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 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 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      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 river of my memories   Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind      That you're waving from the back roads   By the river of my memories   Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind