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.It's knowing I'm not shackled

By forgotten words and bonds

And the ink stains that have dried upon some lines

That keeps you on the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

And 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 walkin'.

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 waiting on the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

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's crying

To her mother cause she turned and I was gone,Well 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 walkin' on the back roads

By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.

Well I dip my cup of soup back

From a gurglin' bubblin' cauldron in some train yard

My beard a-roughenin' coal pile

And a dirty hat pulled low across my faceThrough cupped hands round a tin can

I pretend to hold you to my breast and find

That you're waitin' on the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind.

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