Gentle On My Mind

(album: The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings - Disc 13 - 1995)

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 back roads
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 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 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
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 walking on the back roads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup back from a gurgling crackling cauldron
In some train yard
My beard a rustling 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 waiting from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind