(J. Hartford)

It's knowin' that your door is always open


And your path is free to walk


That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag

Rolled up and stashed behind your couch


And it's knowin' I'm not shackled


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 clingin' to the rocks and ivy

Planted on their columns now that bind 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 movin' 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 junkyards and the highways come between us


And some other woman's cryin' to her mother


'cause she turned and I was gone

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 flowin' gentle on my mind




I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron


In some train yard

My beard a rustlin' 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 waitin' from the back roads

By the rivers of my memory


Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind