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 stashed behind your couch

And it's knowing I'm not shackled

By forgotten words and bonds

And the ink stains

That have dried upon some line

That keeps you in the backroads

By the rivers of my memory

That 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 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 backroads

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 crying to her mother

Cause she turned and I was gone

I still might run in silence

Tears of joy might stain my face

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

But not to where I cannot see

You walking on the backroads

By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup

Back from the gurgling crackling cauldron

In some train yard

My beard a roughning coal pile and a dirty hat

Pulled low across my face

Through cupped hands around a tin can

I pretend I hold you to my breast and find

That you're waving from the backroads

By the rivers of my memory

Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind