What is a star without the backdrop of the night?
What is a sea without a shore?
Until we met, I didn't know I was incomplete.

Betty Hensley

LOVE IS LIKE...

Sometimes love is like a gentle rain
sprinkling down upon you and catching you unaware;
leaving you warm and refreshed.

Sometimes love is like a tidal wave
rishing over you and engulfing your every thought and feeling;
leaving you breathless and exhilirated.

Sometimes love is like a thunderstorm
beating down upon you relentessly;
leaving you bruised and exhausted.

Sometiems love is a favorite blanknet
wrapping you in warmth and comfort;
leaving you in total contentment.

Sometimes love is like a tablecloth
covering the nicks and mars created by time;
and leaving you looking for something new.

Sometimes love is like an old shoe
with holes and a worn out sole;
leaving you wanting to throw it away.

Sometimes love is like a good book
one you can't put down and when finished;
to be read again and again.

Sometimes love is like a fine wine
aging to perfection as time goes by;
leaving you wanting to savor it.

Sometimes love is like a shadow
following you around for awhile then disappearing;

...and Sometimes love is like all of these
happening one at a time, one after another or together;
leaving you aware that it's constantly changing

Mary Updike(Claire)

THE TEAR
When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt,
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear:

The man, doom'd to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death
For a fanciful wreath
In Glory's romantic career;
But he raises the foe
When in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride,
He return to his bride!
Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear;
All his toils are repaid
When, embracing the maid,
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth!
Seat of Friendship and Truth,
Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting year
Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd,
For a last look I turn'd,
But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear:

Though my vows I can pour,
To my Mary no more,
My Mary, to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bow'r,
I remember the hour,
She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest,
May she live ever blest!
Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign,
What I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart,
Ere from you I depart,
This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet,
In this rural retreat,
May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight
To the regions of night,
And my corse shall recline on its bier;
As ye pass by the tomb,
Where my ashes consume,
Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

George Gordon Lord Byron


THOUGHTS OF YOU

If, when I get up the skies are grey...
I think of you...it clears away...

When I get troubled and feeling blue...
I lift my spirit with thoughts of you.

When thoughts of distance sadden me...
I think of us... and what will be...

When I hear of a love that's true...
My heart only lets me think of you...

by B. D. Hensley ©1997