Gentle On My Mind

(John Hartford)
 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 shacked by forgotten words and bons
 And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
 That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
 That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.
 It's not clinging to the rocks
 And I'd be 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 back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
 For hours you're just gentle on my mind.
 Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
 And the junk yards 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 back roads
 By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.
 I dipped my cup of soap back from a gurgling
 Crackling caldron in some train yard
 My beard a roughen coal pile and a dirty hat
 That pulled low across my face.
 Through cupped hands around a tin can
 I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
 That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
 Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind...