And your path is free to walk

That makes me tend to keep my sleeping bag rolled up

And stashed behind your couch

It's knowing I'm not shacked by forgotten words and bons

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 bind 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 back roads by the rivers of my memory

And for hours you're just gentle on my mind

Though the wheet fields and the clothes lines

And the junk yards 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 back roads

By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup back from the gurglin’

Crackling caldron in some train yard

My beard a roughening coal pile

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 backroads

By the rivers of my memory

Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind