Gentle On My Mind

(album: Happy Heart - 1969)

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 backroads
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 binds 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 backroads
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 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 backroads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup
Back from the gurgling crackling cauldron
In some train yard
My beard a roughning coal pile and a dirty hat
Pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands around a tin can
I pretend I 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