Before we get to Love and God, We of the Showbear Family Circus write with a heavy heart to tell you that the author of these three poems, Jonathan Dowdle, passed from this life between acceptance and confirmation of terms. There was an 8-month delay. We learned 10 days ago that the reason for the delay is that Jonathan was hit by an 18 wheeler and killed while walking.

Jonathan (Jon) Douglas Dowdle, 38, of 255 Drucilla Drive, went home to be with the Lord on Friday, September 13, 2019.

Born in Nashua, NH, he was the son of Eileen McLean Dowdle (Richard Davis) of Gaffney and the late Stephen Terrell Dowdle. He was employed with Dollar Tree Distribution, was a published writer and enjoyed writing. He loved animals, especially dogs, loved his family, especially his nieces and nephews. Mr. Dowdle was a member of Beaverdam Baptist Church.

His family has granted our request to publish this poem posthumously.

Through hours, long and overdrawn
I speak your name,
I should speak darker now
Than even my darkness knows;
And yet the light, of pulse, within,
Still, without reason, grows.

I don’t claim beauty on these worn streets,
I am rented down to bone,
Between the love I’ve tried to give,
And the absence, so often, sown.
I am the things I give, so often,
How this relates, these chains, I have forged myself,
Ordained by the mouth of fate.

But I keep my heart beyond the bruise,
Beyond the trying times,
Behind the truth etched in stone,
And the unspoken crimes.

I keep your name upon my tongue,
Consecrated in belief,
If this is a theft of heart,
Then I have played the thief;
But I do not see it as a sin,
The keeping of the heart,
Your name is the only thing
That pressed back against the dark.

So let them lullaby the truth,
Press it as a psalm,
What does it mean to me;
And how could it bring me harm?

I am not a beautiful thing
Here, on these rusted, rain kissed streets;
But perhaps you might find the beauty in
The mirror of belief.