It’s knowin' that your door is always open
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 knowin' I’m not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the heat stains that have dried up
on some lovin'
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 mellowed by me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we’d fit together
walking
It’s just knowing that the world
will not be cursin'
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 [bad word] between us
And some other woman’s cryin'
to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still [bad word] in silence
Till' the join might stain
my face
And the summer sun might burn me 'till
I’m blind
But not to where I cannot see you
Walking in the back roads
By the rivers flowing gently on my mind
I dip my cup of soup from a gurgling,
cracking cauldron in some train yard
I’m [bad word]  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 changes on my mind